Voting abroad not all fun and games

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Melbourne, Australia

If it had not been for the security check at the gate, the atmosphere inside would have reminded a visitor of a party in full swing.

The front and rear yards of the Indonesian Consulate General in Melbourne, Victoria, had been taken over by white marquees, some adorned with red stripes.

People were chatting and laughing, and in the courtyard off the rear entrance were tables selling food and drink. Only the conspicuous absence of dangdut music reminded people that festivities were not taking place.

Ten years ago, in fact, this event would have been called pesta demokrasi (the festival of democracy), when the word democracy hardly meant anything in Indonesia.

Last Monday was polling day for Indonesians, at home and elsewhere. In the state of Victoria, 3,502 people were registered to vote. Unlike in other states, the centralized set-up in Victoria made it significantly easier for voters. They only needed to come to one place and show their voter eligibility cards to the officials at the entrance.

They would then be directed to their particular booths. Since it was not a holiday in Australia, voters came and went after a brief chat. It was only at lunch time that the food and drinks stalls began to be well patronized, when those who worked in the surrounding suburbs came to vote and grab the opportunity to have an Indonesian lunch.

Unfortunately for the organizers and the consulate general staff, they had to keep the booths open until after 8 p.m., making it a very long day. This was necessary because the majority of voters were only able to come after office hours.

During the day, a few hiccups surfaced. Despite the fact that information about voting registration had been widely publicized, online as well as through various community organizations, a number of people still came unprepared.

Over 100 would-be voters arrived without their right-to-vote cards, some even without the necessary IDs. While a number of them claimed that they had been registered in Indonesia or elsewhere, they were not able to produce their proof-of-travel letters from the General Elections Commission back home, which would be required if they were to maintain their voting rights.

"We honestly didn't know we had to obtain such letters. As far as we know we have been registered," said some of them.

Many were students who had arrived in Australia after the registration closing date of Feb. 28, 2004, while others were people traveling for various reasons.

They obviously believed the system was more high-tech than it actually was, where a lot of the information was still transferred manually in hard copy.

"It broke my heart, but what can I do?" said Cely Goeltom, president of the Melbourne branch of the Committee for Overseas Voters, on their inability to exercise their voting rights.

"Rules are rules. We can't waive them for some and not for others."

And obviously they were not in a position to set up an ad hoc tribunal to decide who was genuine and who was not.

The headache did not stop there.

It was well over 8 p.m. when officers of the Committee for Overseas Voters closed the voting. After a brief break, they returned to work and the counting began.

The painfully slow process was made even slower by the number of invalidly completed ballot papers. It became obvious this election was extremely demanding on the voters.

"Despite all the instructions given, some still punched a party and a legislative candidate who did not belong to the party. Others punched the selected candidate without selecting the corresponding party," said Kamapradipta, the vice consul for information.

"Apparently they were confused. They were allowed to punch only the party without the candidate, not vice-versa."

Approximately 50 votes were wasted that way. For those who had been working for well over 12 hours, this was very disappointing.

But maybe it was confusing, or maybe there were unrealistic expectations on the part of the election committee, considering that it was a new system.

"It was confusing," a voter had confessed that afternoon. "I knew who I wanted to vote for, but I forgot his party. So I had to stay there for some time and read the instructions again."

Some voters spent over five minutes reading and rereading the instructions, then matching the candidates and the parties.

When asked why they had not read all the information beforehand, one of them spoke for the rest in saying: "We are busy people. We have demanding jobs and families to look after. So we put it off and put it off, until we had no time left. We came hoping we'd be able to do it on the spot."

Didn't they take this election seriously?

"Of course we do. We came all this way, didn't we?" one said. Indeed many had to travel tens of kilometers to vote.

Luckily for the organizers, a fair number of voters already knew what parties they were voting for, and spent only one minute in the booth.

"I even knew what number that party was," said a contented voter, "so I went in there and punched that party's symbol. I didn't know who the candidate was, but that was not a problem."

By 11 p.m., the counting became excruciatingly slow, because the officials were exhausted, having been on duty since nine that morning. At midnight they realized that in some booths they had made mistakes, and had to start from the beginning again.

In their exhaustion, some counters counted a selected party and its candidates as two separate votes. The realization made others wonder whether they had not done the same.

After counting and recounting well into the wee hours the following morning, Cely Goeltom made an executive decision that they had to stop and resume counting the following afternoon, promptly agreed by all the members who were near-catatonic from exhaustion.

When they returned that afternoon, fueled by a good night's sleep and a generous day off from work, the process was completed without a hitch.

It was agreed that everyone learned from this election. Hopefully, the voters, organizers and even the elections commission back home will do a better job second time round after traveling a well-beaten path.