General Elections Commission (KPU) Chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary has expressed optimism that the e-voting system can already be applied in the 2014 presidential election, Antara news agency reports Wednesday.

However, he said that it will be still difficult and complicated to use the same system for the legislative elections.

The legislative elections in Indonesia use an open proportional system with up to 38 political parties participating in the 2009 elections, and each party nominated up to 12, even 33 candidates, he said at a national dialogue on the use of the e-Voting system in the 2014 general elections organised by the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) here Wednesday.

However, he believed that BPPT Chairman Marzan Aziz Iskandar had anticipated the complication by providing appropriate technology, for instance by using button 1 for party and 2 for the candidates.

He reminded, however, that general elections needed to be supported not only by facilities, but also by infrastructures such as electricity and internet which are not yet available in many regions in Indonesia.

“In India up to 700 million people participated in the general elections but geographically, the country was still in one continent and applying a simpler district system (than that in Indonesia).

“Meanwhile, Indonesia’s 171 million eligible voters are spread in more than 10,000 islands,” he said.

On contrast, Ganjar Pranowo, the chairman of the Working Team on the Revision of the Law on General Elections from the House of Representatives’ Commission II, said e-voting in the 2014 general elections would be impossible.

“E-voting for the presidential elections will still make sense, but, it’s impossible for legislative elections except if we want to change the proportional system to a district system,” he said.

The BPPT chairman said his agency was ready technologically and had even tried it in village head elections in Jembrana District, Bali Province, last year.

The basis of the e-voting system is electronic identity cards (e-KTP) which are expected to be ready by 2012 nation-wide, but have been tried in six districts/cities, namely Padang (West Sumatra), Denpasar (Bali), Jembrana (Bali), Yogyakarta (Java), Cilegon (West Java) and Makassar (South Sulawesi).

This good news is shared by GNFI’s contributor, Saiful Muhajir.
Source: Bernama