RI will not use electronic voting machines: KPU

RI will not use electronic voting machines: KPU

Veeramalla Anjaiah, The Jakarta Post/ Jakarta

Indonesia -- the third largest democratic nation in the world --
will not use electronic voting machines in the near future, as
the machines are costly and not suited to the situation here, the
General Elections Commission (KPU) chief said on Wednesday.

"Each voting machine costs around US$3,000. We have around
600,000 polling stations ... We have neither the funds nor the
resources to use electronic voting machines in our elections.
They are not suitable for our country as the situation is
different, and people still trust the manual election process,"
commission chairman Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin said in Washington,
during a live video conference held at the U.S. Embassy in
Jakarta.

Nazaruddin is leading a small delegation to Washington to
observe the 2004 U.S. election, in which electronic voting
machines were used on Tuesday. Earlier, India and Brazil used
electronic voting machines in their elections.

The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta organized the conference on
Wednesday, in which around 70 Indonesian journalists, officials
and academics took part.

While responding to a question on the major differences
between the U.S. and Indonesian election systems, Nazaruddin said
the Indonesian election system was centralized, while the system
in the U.S. was more decentralized.

"The U.S. election system can't be implemented in Indonesia.
We have neither the technology nor the human resources to follow
the American model, which is well-organized. Election authorities
in the U.S. have enormous funds to conduct elections, whereas, we
in Indonesia do not have funds of that size".

In response to a question from The Jakarta Post on possible
cooperation between the U.S. election team and the Indonesian
elections commission, Nazaruddin hinted that there would be some
kind of cooperation in the future.

"Not now. We came here just to observe how the U.S. election
was held, and compare it with Indonesia's. The U.S. election
officials are very busy. But, in the future, we would like to
have some kind of cooperation between the two organizations,"
Nazaruddin said.

Nazaruddin and his team members admired the way the election
was organized in the U.S.

"We noted there were two major aspects of the election that
contributed to its success. The management skills of the U.S.
elections team -- which introduced an early voting process to
avoid trouble -- and the application of modern technology," he
said.

"Even the way they recruited election officials, who are
highly qualified for their jobs, is worth considering. We learned
a lot from the U.S. election to improve the quality of our own
elections in the future, Valina Singka, a member of Nazaruddin's
team, said.

Unlike in several other Asian countries, where U.S. embassies
had organized "red-white-and-blue" parties to observe the U.S.
election, the embassy in Jakarta organized only the "U.S.
Election Watch - 2004" program.

"Keeping in mind that it is the holy month of Ramadhan, we
didn't organize any other program," M. Max Kwak, the embassy's
new press attache told the Post on the sidelines of the video
conference.