KPU Yet to Apply E-Voting in 2020 Regional Head Election

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The General Election Commission (KPU) head Arief Budiman said that electronic voting or e-voting system would not be used yet in the simultaneous regional head elections in 2020.

“We have not run a trial test at the district level. We haven’t thought to apply it to date,” said Arief after a hearing session in Parliament complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Monday, July 8.

According to him, the commission is mulling to implement e-rekap since the system was similar to the vote-count information system (Situng) used in 2019 general elections. However, he did not refute the possibility of e-voting to be applied in the next regional heads of general elections as it is more effective and efficient in terms of time and budget compared to the conventional one.

“There are many factors (problems in e-voting implementation), including the budget. But if e-voting used in national level, we have to agree it will be the final result,” Arief added.

Director General of Population and Civil Registry of Home Affairs Ministry, Zudan Arif Fakrulloh, urged the commission immediately conduct a trial test of e-voting considering the system was proven to be time efficient. 

“Run a trial test of e-voting in a small region as a pilot, because 921 areas in 81 regencies that have applied e-voting can announce the election result within 2 hours,” said Zudan in the sidelines of the hearing.

The hearing session was led by House of Representatives (DPR) Commission II deputy head Herman Khaeron and Mardani Ali Sera and attended by KPU, Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu), Population and Civil Registry DG, as well as Regional Autonomy DG, discussing the KPU regulation on the 2020 simultaneous regional heads election.

ANTARA