Some ballots spoiled, some found in Deli river

Some ballots spoiled, some found in Deli river

JAKARTA (JP): Thousands of the more than 550,000 ballots
received by the Blora regency elections committee in East Java
were faulty, while six bags of ballots were found at the bottom
of the Deli River in Labuhan Batu, North Sumatra.

Blora regency elections official Slamet Wiryanto was quoted by
Antara as saying that up to 30 ballots from each pack of 500
ballots were flawed and could not be used for voting. In Bogorejo
district, for example, 300 of the 5,000 ballots received by local
officials had to be discarded.

The flaws included missing pictures and missing details of
polling stations.

"Those ballots cannot be used," Slamet said, adding that his
office had enough extra ballots to replace the some 33,000
damaged ones. There are 492,775 registered voters in the regency,
while officials received 588,968 ballots.

Slamet said there would be 1,190 polling stations in the 16
districts and 295 villages in Blora.

From Medan, Antara reported a group of children found six bags
of ballots in the Deli River.

An official with the Medan elections committee, Ali Musa
Hutagalung, said the ballots were not meant for Medan.

"They were supposed to be delivered to Tanah Karo regency,"
Hutagalung said.

As of Friday midnight, no elections officials had come forward
to claim the ballots.

The incidents in Blora and Medan were only two of a number of
glitches encountered in elections preparations. In Bengkulu, the
Independent Election Monitoring Committee uncovered voters who
had registered more than once in Muko-Muko Selatan village, North
Bengkulu.

The elections supervisory committee in Pekalongan, Central
Java, found 11 of the 30 political parties registered in the
regency had committed various violations in the first two days of
campaigning, Antara said.

The violators included the Democratic People's Party (PRD),
the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the United
Development Party (PPP). (swe)