VIVAnews - The Center For Electoral Reform (Cetro) requested that the Elections Commission revise the ballot marking regulation. The regulation should proceed with the Governmental Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perpu) No.1/2009 which allows double ballot marking.
"After the Perpu is issued, the Elections Commission must to revise the KPU Regulation No. 3/2209 on the technical guide of the Elections implementation, voting and balot counting in voting spots," said the Executive Director of the Center for Electoral Reform, Hadar Nafis Gumay, on March 1.
According to him, the regulation stipulated the four valid ways to mark the ballot, i.e. ticking (√), dashing (—), imperfect ticking (/) or (\), crossing (X) and ballot-nailing. But a simulation result in Tangerang showed that out of 78 invalid votes, 44 votes were actually valid.
"The cause of the errors included marking the ballot more than once inside a column or marking more than once on the party and/or candidate's name and/or candidate's number," he said.
Therefore, the Commission needs to revise the method of the ballot marking immediately in order to make it more flexible. It will not only be concerned with the validation of repeated marking on ballot, but also limiting the marking methods on those four categories.
"A more inclusive and flexible regulation on the validation of the votes over ballot-marking that voters do is needed," he said.
He said it is possible that voters will be unable to mark the ballots as regulated. As long as the marking is on a valid spot, using the provided tool, and showing the choice clearly, it should be considered as valid. "We will make things easier for the voters and appreciate their votes," Hadar said.
--
Translated by: Ariyantri E. Tarman
