Claims of Fixed Voter List Appear Again at MK
Arguments about fraud in preparing the fixed voter list (DPT) appeared again during Wednesday’s hearing on the presidential election litigation at the Constitutional Court (MK). Similar arguments also appeared during the 2009 and 2014 presidential elections.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Arguments about fraud or negligence in the preparation of the fixed voters list became materials being tested in the election dispute resolution the Constitutional Court. Fraud related to the DPT has been one of the arguments that the plaintiff tried to prove in a number of election disputes.
The Constitutional Court was entering the stage of hearing the testimonies of the plaintiff, namely the Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno camp, in the litigation over the 2019 presidential election, with the presentation of witnesses on Wednesday (19/6/2019). In the hearing, a number of witnesses disclosed allegations of the DPT fraud. Witness Agus Maksum from Sidoarjo, East Java, and Idham from Makassar, South Sulawesi, disclosed that the alleged DPT fraud was carried out through an inaccurate process of data updating.
The election litigation filed to the Constitutional Court by the Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa camp in the 2014 presidential election also dealt with arguments about the existence of fraud and at least negligence in preparing the DPT. In the 2009 presidential election, the same arguments being submitted to the Constitution Court was filed by the Megawati Soekarnoputri-Prabowo Subianto and Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto presidential and vice-presidential candidate pairs.
In Wednesday’s hearing, witness Agus Maksum said that as an IT team expert of the National Winning Body (BPN) of the Prabowo-Sandi camp, he found ID numbers (NIK) and family cards (KK) that did not comply with the provisions and the existence of unnatural voters data amounting to 17.5 million people. The data contained voter’s data with the same date of birth, namely on 1 July, Dec. 31 and Jan 1. According to him, the number of voters born on 1 July was 9.8 million, 5.3 million on Dec. 31 and 2.3 million on Jan. 1.
"We consulted a statistician and got information that the reasonable number is 190 million voters divided by 365 days, namely 520,000," he said.
According to Agus, the General Election Commission (KPU) did not correctly match and research the voter data, so actual data updates did not occur properly. Regarding the 17.5 million voter data, Agus claimed to get an explanation from the KPU.
"The KPU explained the same birth date as a policy to record those who did not know their date of birth. We can accept the reason, but what we cannot accept is why the amount can be that high," Agus said.
Meanwhile, witness Idham said he got the DPT data from the Gerindra Party. After being reviewed, he found data that was not natural, including NIK whose code did not match certain district codes, multiple voters and underage voters. Most of the alleged fraud from his analysis was found in Bogor regency, West Java.
The KPU as a defendant doubted arguments regarding the alleged DPT fraud. KPU member Viryan Azis explored Agus\' statement about whether the report on the alleged 17.5 million invalid DPT had been followed up by the KPU. The witness confirmed that there had been a follow-up by the KPU, but the actions of the KPU by picking test samples on 1,604 people from 17.5 million were considered inadequate.
"Did the BPN team in determining the sample sign or agree?" Viryan asked witness Agus.
Agus said that what the BPN agreed was the division of tasks to determine the locations of the 17.5 million DPT data inspection. However, he considered the samples taken by the KPU as too few.
Always an attention
Outside the hearing, the executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy, Titi Anggraini, said that the DPT was basically the source of the votes. Those who are listed in the DPT are citizens who will vote in elections. Therefore, the invalidity of the DPT will greatly affect the votes to be garnered. This condition causes the issue of DPT from election to election to be the central attention of election participants.
Even though the design of the election and data updating continues to be improved, she said, the issue of the DPT will still become the focus. The low awareness of the public and election participants to follow the stages and process of data updating has resulted in many who just realized there were problems in the final moments ahead the election.
Other information
Witnesses who gave statements up to around 11:40 p.m. revealed information regarding the alleged ballot punching by members of the polling station working committee, alleged fraud in the recapitulation of votes at the district election committee level, alleged fraud by the regional heads and allegations of fraud in information system data input of the KPU vote count.
This Thursday, the Constitutional Court will hold a verification hearing by listening to the testimonies of witnesses from the defendant, the KPU. KPU Chairman Arief Budiman said that his party had prepared relevant witnesses. The number of witnesses will be adjusted to the provisions of the Constitutional Court, namely 15 fact witnesses and 2 expert witnesses.
"Witnesses come from various elements, both the public and the election organizers," he said.
The chairman of the legal team of the related party, namely the Joko Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin presidential and vice-presidential candidate pair, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said his witnesses would answer or provide information to counter the testimonies from the plaintiff. (REK)