Poll watchers dispatched to observe data entry

JAKARTA (JP): Amid rumors of election fraud following the poor transmission of election results from polling places to the election data center, a poll watchdog decided on Friday to dispatch its volunteers to data entry places in regencies nationwide.

Rectors Forum executive director Sudjana Sapi'ie told a media conference at the Joint Operations Media Center (JOMC) the volunteers would be stationed at regency branch offices of Bank BNI and Bank Rakyat Indonesia to monitor the data entry process.

"We knew about the data entry procedure only last week. We'll soon dispatch our volunteers to branch offices of Bank BNI and BRI to observe the process," he said.

BNI and BRI are state-owned banks and have branches and online computer systems in regencies across the country.

Poll officials at both banks' branch offices will key in the poll results, hierarchically sent from the local polling places to the district election committees and then transmitted electronically to provincial election committees.

There have been persistent reports of vote counting glitches at the local level in the past few days. The General Elections Commission (KPU), however, dismissed speculations the slow tallying of poll results was politically motivated, and insisted the delay was caused by technical problems.

Sudjana said the slow tallying could have been influenced by the organizational structure of the KPU, whose members are representatives of political parties contesting the election and the government.

"In the future, the general election should be organized by a nonpartisan and nongovernment institution only.

"Party representatives at the KPU obviously have their own vested interests and will strive to achieve their own parties' target," Sudjana said.

He recalled that KPU members were not prompt to perform their allotted tasks during the election campaigning, as they were busy participating in the campaign. "A lot of administrative tasks were delayed until the last minute."

Meanwhile, statistician Robert K. Sembiring confirmed the forum's difficulty in honoring an earlier promise that it would announce its complete election monitoring results two days after the June 7 election.

"We've used relatively sophisticated equipment to conduct the monitoring and tabulation. Yet there have been some obstacles encountered in the process," Sembiring said, without elaborating.

"I must say that I sympathize with the KPU for its slow tallying of poll results," he added.

He said as of Friday afternoon, the forum could only provide a representative evaluation in 11 provinces, or about 58 percent of the overall vote.

"We only have complete data of election results in the 11 provinces. We do not have the courage to reveal the results in other provinces, where we do not have sufficient data." (imn)