Yukli Mariam

Members of the General Elections Commission (KPU) talk before announcing the new final voters list on Sunday. (Photo: Yudhi Sukma Wijaya, JG)

KPU Still Under Fire For New Voters List

The General Elections Commission (KPU) has announced the latest version of its controversial final voters list, but it immediately ran into fresh criticism for failing to remove dubious entries.

Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo, head of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), said that the list still had the names of the deceased.

“So the DPT actually has yet to reach the final stage of cleaning up the voters list,” Bambang said.

He alleged that the KPU had announced the list, even though it was still inaccurate, to comply with KPU Law No. 45 issued this year, concerning the schedule of holding the presidential elections.

After lengthy deliberations on Sunday, the KPU announced the new final voters list - which cost Rp 19.34 billion ($1.9 million) to update - for the July 8 presidential elections.

The list was updated twice ahead of the April 9 legislative elections but it was criticized as being inaccurate because it contained the names of the deceased — including an executed terrorist — and it included fictitious or bogus voters and misprinted personal details.

The most common complaint was that eligible voters were left off the list entirely. The list was compiled by the KPU based on poor raw data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The new list has a total of 176.4 million voters, an increase of about five million. At least 1.13 million of the voters were outside the country.

KPU member Andi Nurpati attributed the rise to new voters who had just turned 17 and the number of people who had been left off the first list.

Based on the new list, West Java was the province with the highest number of voters (30,118,380), while the province with the lowest number was West Papua, with 587,606 voters.

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