Findings in East Java Voter Fraud Claims Due Today

The East Java General Elections Commission, or KPUD, said it expected to receive today the results of district-level investigations into suspected voter list fraud in the province — an incident that has fueled fears of chaos during the April 9 legislative elections.

“All District General Elections Commissions are now investigating the final voter list for inaccuracies,” East Java KPUD member Arief Budiman said on Sunday. “We’re expecting the district-level commission to submit their findings on Monday [today] and we’ll meet them afterward to discuss the results.”

Arief said the East Java KPUD had asked its district commissions to crosscheck their sources of data. “Hopefully, we’ll find out the main problem. Probably, it was simply misprinted voter list data,” he said.

The alleged vote-rigging in East Java’s gubernatorial election last year sparked an uproar, causing several political parties to worry that similar cases could occur during the legislative elections next month.

National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri was last week forced to clarify a statement by former East Java Police chief, Insp. Gen. Herman S. Sumawiredja, that there had been voter list manipulation in the province. Bambang told reporters that Herman acted prematurely when he named Wahyudi Purnomo, the former East Java KPUD chairman, a suspect, given that the case was later dropped by Herman’s successor, Anton Bachrul Alam.

After the gubernatorial poll results revealed that Sukarwo had won the election, his rival, Khofifah Indar Parawansa, filed a complaint alleging that 23 percent of the total votes cast were “dubious.”

Acting on Kofifah’s complaint, the Constitutional Court found “systematic and massive manipulation” during the voting process. The ensuing re-vote and recount in certain districts, however, still saw Sukarwo winning as governor. The final tally gave him 7,660,861 votes, just 34,104 votes ahead of his rival.

Despite efforts to check the accuracy of the voter list, the East Java KPUD still has no idea of what to do if the list is indeed found to be inaccurate.

“We don’t know yet,” Arief said. “We will conduct a meeting first to discuss the results of the finding. We hope that the investigation will find that the current final voter list is correct.”

Syamsul Bahri, a member of the General Elections Commission, or KPU, said on Sunday that there was no possibility the voter list was going to be revised again.

“We will need another government regulation in lieu of law to revise it again,” Syamsul said. “That’s why I don’t think we will revise it even if it contains errors.”

Syamsul said that if there were double-registered voters, the commission would delete the names on election day.

“We have several mechanisms to ensure that only eligible voters are allowed to vote on election day,” he said.

“A voter won’t be able to vote twice, as they have to dip their finger in indelible ink. This proves they’ve already voted, and they and won’t be allowed to vote in other polling stations.”

Agustiani Tio Fridelina Sitorus, a member of the Elections Supervisory Board, or Bawaslu, agreed on Sunday that the investigation would not provide justification for once again revising the voter list.

“Final voter list means final. No more revision,” she said.

According to her, Bawaslu has also asked the KPU to double check the data that had been provided by East Java KPUD.

“They had time to revise the voter list before they announced their revisions to the list earlier this month,” she said.

“Whatever the [result of the investigation] is, the total number of people on the national final voter list should not be changed again.”