Voters unable to punch ballots: Survey

Voters unable to punch ballots: Survey

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

If the legislative election was held today, most ballot papers
would probably be disqualified due to errors made by voters in
punching the ballot papers, a survey indicated.

A survey conducted by the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro)
revealed that more than half of the country's 145 million voters
in the 2004 elections still do not know how to punch ballot
papers properly.

Most voters, according to the results of the survey announced
on Thursday, do not know that they have to punch both the logo of
the political party and the name of the candidate.

Hadar N. Gumay, deputy director of Cetro, said 43 percent of
voters only punched the ballot paper on the logo as they had done
in the past, while 34 percent did not know where to punch.

"The poor knowledge about the procedure for punching the
ballot paper in this year's legislative election reaches almost
all levels of voters," Hadar told a media conference here on
Thursday.

Indonesia will hold a legislative election on April 5, 2004.

Those who do not know how to punch the ballot papers are
mostly people from remote villages, elderly voters, farmers, taxi
drivers, and public transportation drivers, the survey showed.

The survey conducted between Dec. 4 and Dec. 22, 2003 involved
2,995 respondents in 10 provinces -- Jakarta, West Java, Central
Java, East Java, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Bali, West
Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi. Almost 65
percent of respondents lived in villages and the remainder lived
in cities.

The survey also shows that there was no significant difference
between voters on Java island and outside Java as most of them
still have no idea how to punch the ballot paper properly.

In West Java, only 14 percent of voters punched the ballot
paper correctly and in East Java, 15 percent. The two provinces
combined have more than 52 million voters, more than one-third of
total voters in the 2004 elections.

In North Sumatra, only 17 percent punched the ballot paper
properly, in South Kalimantan 20 percent, West Kalimantan 24
percent, South Sulawesi 39 percent, Bali 35 percent, and South
Sumatra 30 percent.

The survey also revealed that 63 percent of voters have never
heard of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), and 84
percent voters have no knowledge about the 30 percent quota for
women in the House of Representatives.

Hadar said the poor voter knowledge was due to the failure of
both the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the government in
disseminating information.

Syamsuddin Harris from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences
(LIPI) concurred.

"This survey indicates that the nationwide dissemination of
electoral information launched by President Megawati
Soekarnoputri two months ago is just rhetoric," he told
reporters.

"People know about the 2004 elections, but they do not know
when the elections will be held or the new procedure for punching
ballot papers", Syamsuddin said.

He went on to say that if the information campaign failed, the
quality of the 2004 elections would be no better than the 1999
elections and many votes would be declared invalid.

Hadar called on the KPU and the government to seriously
conduct an election information campaign through the mass media
and direct meetings.

Separately, KPU media adviser Djohermansyah Djohan said that
the KPU would launch an election information dissemination
program next week until April 5 through 300 radio stations, seven
television stations and 11 print media.

"This aggressive election information program is made possible
by a US$2 million fund provided by the United Nations Development
Program," he said.

Djohermansyah said the infomericals would begin on Monday with
six to 10 slots per day on radio, followed by TV stations with 10
slots per day on Jan. 26. A radio slot lasts for one minute,
while one slot on TV is 30 seconds.

KPU has allotted Rp 75 billion from the state budget for the
election information dissemination program and plans to add
another Rp 40 billion from the 2004 state budget.