TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The General Election Commission (KPU) commissioner Viryan Azis said that the same date birth data of 17.5 million voters in the permanent voter list (DPT) was not invalid or double data as reported by the campaign team of Prabowo - Sandiaga.

The similar data, Viryan underlined, was based on data in the Home Affairs Ministry’s Directorate General of Population and Civil Registry (Dukcapil), and that it was a normal phenomenon. Many people, he added, forgot their birth date when asked by Dukcapil officers who were recording civil registry in the field, so the data was noted the same.

“Therefore, the data was not invalid but real,” said Viryan Monday at his office, Jakarta.

Read also: Prabowo Camp Reports Millions of Double-registered Voters to KPU

The same date birth in the voter list was written in three groups; the first day of the seventh month, 31st day in the twelfth month, and the first day of the first month. The data, he added, was obtained from Dukcapil and had existed since the 2014 general election.

Earlier, the Prabowo - Sandiaga campaign team reported suspicious data of 17.5 million voters for the 2019 election. They claimed that the data was obtained after scanning the second revision of the DPT issued on December 15, 2018.

The campaign team spokesman Ahmad Riza Patria said that his team found 17,553,708 suspicious data, comprised of 9,817,003 voters born on July 1, 5,377,401 voters born on December 31, and 2.359.304 voters born on January 1. While in fact, he noted, the highest figure of the same data phenomenon could only amount to 400,000 to 500,000 data.

The team also recorded a total of 304.782 voters aged above 90 years old, 20,475 voters aged under 17 years old, and alleged invalid data in a number of provinces.

BUDIARTI UTAMI PUTRI