Hanin Marwah, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) urges the government to consider the use of e-voting for the next election as part of the solution to address some persisting cases of human rights violations during the general elections.
"There's no other option, we must consider the use of e-voting for future elections," said Komnas HAM's research and assessment commissioner, Saurlin P. Siagian, in a press conference on Wednesday, January 15, 2025.
Saurlin believes that the use of technology can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the voting process and prevent fatigue for voting organizers (KPPS) due to the heavy workload, which caused deaths in the 2019 and 2024 elections.
The human rights commission also revealed four conclusions on their monitoring of the 2024 general elections, with the first being the heavy workload and long working hours for election officers.
The other three conclusions are that simultaneous general elections burden election officers with an elevated level of preparedness, the use of an open proportional system that requires election officers to be more thorough and careful to ensure data accuracy, and that the government focuses more on logistics instead of the welfare of the officers.
According to the dpr.go.id page, it was reported that as many as 894 KPPS officers died and 5,175 were injured in the 2019 election. In 2024, up to February 17, as many as 57 officers died.
Ministry of Health data shows that in 2024, the deaths of election officers comprised 29 KPPS members, 10 members of Community Protection, 9 witnesses, 6 officers, two voting committees, and one member of the Election Supervisory Agency, or Bawaslu.
At least 27 regencies and 1,752 villages across the country implement digital-based voting, or e-voting, according to the data from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
The head of the E-Voting Application team at BRIN, Andrari Grahitandaru, explained that the development of E-Voting was based on Constitutional Court Decision Number 147/PUU-VII/2009, which allowed for electronic voting.
The Constitutional Court stated that e-voting does not violate the Constitution so long as it meets the fair and honest election criteria.
According to Andrari, the Regional Election Law has accommodated the Constitutional Court's decision, but it has yet to be integrated into General Election Law No. 7 of 2017.
– Melinda Kusuma Ningrum, Alif Ilham Fajriadi, and Irsyan Hasyim contributed to the writing of this article.
Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1964552/komnas-ham-urges-govt-to-implement-e-voting-in-indonesi