'Ghost voters' give analysts a fright
Adisti Sukma Sawitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The large number of "ghost voters" on the election rolls could lead to violence among supporters of the two governor candidates and undermine trust in the Jakarta Elections Commission, analysts say.
A researcher at the University of Indonesia's political study center, Hasan, said ghost voters could be used by the candidates' campaign teams to manipulate the vote on election day.
"They can simply bribe officials overseeing the vote count to issue voter registration cards in the names of these voters and no one would realize it," he said at a public discussion in Salemba, Central Jakarta.
It would not be difficult to find underpaid officials to issue the registration cards for a couple hundred thousand rupiah, Hasan said.
He said this could trigger conflict during and after the election process.
A voter registration audit, performed by the Institute of Research, Education and Information on Social and Economic Affairs and the National Democratic Institute last week, found some 21 percent of 2,019 randomly selected names from the voter rolls had either moved away, did not exist, were dead or not old enough to vote.
Considering that there are some 5.6 million eligible voters in Jakarta, there could be up to 1.1 million ghost voters on the election rolls.
In a neighborhood unit in Utan Kayu Selatan, for example, there are six people named Uyoh on the voter rolls, though only one person with that names lives in the unit.
The Jakarta Elections Commission, which has come under fierce criticism for the voter registration process, has attempted to shift the blame to the Population and Civil Registration Agency.
In an attempt to resolve some of the problems surrounding the registration, the commission extended the registration period for three days ending Thursday.
Executive director of the Indonesian Youth Movement Center, Achmad Nur Hidayat, said most of the problems surrounding election preparations could be traced back to a lack of adequate funding.
He said, as an example, the commission was only able to provide three officials to oversee vote counting in each subdistrict in the city.
On average, a subdistrict has about 200,000 eligible voters.
"The administration started planning the election more than a year ago. It is just ridiculous they have not prepared a sufficient amount of funds and human resources for the process," he said.
The administration has allocated Rp 124 billion (US$13.6 million) for the elections commission and Rp 14 billion for a poll watchdog.
Money for the watchdog has yet to be disbursed due to administrative problems.
Source:
http://thejakartapost.com/detailweekly.asp?fileid=20070629.@03
