Source : The Jakarta Post
A test to determine the best method for voters to mark ballots for forthcoming official elections has determined a more effective method that should prevent fraudulent votes and mistakes.
The Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) held the test simulation at Mayestik market in South Jakarta Sunday and found almost 60 percent of 150 voters said manually marking ballots was easier and resulted in fewer mistakes than perforating or punching holes in ballots.
Cetro conducted the simulation as part of its campaign to reform of the country's existing election system, which saw almost 11 million or 8.8 percent of the votes counted declared invalid, partly due to double perforations.
Following the simulation, Cetro recommended the House of Representatives promote a new method of balloting for the 2009 elections, which requires voters to mark the ballots.
Ballot punching has been adopted in the country since the first election in 1955.
"We realize this is a small simulation, but we hope it will provide an insight and lead our lawmakers to discuss the election bill and to consider this method," Cetro executive director Hadar N. Gumay said.
A House special committee and the government were making final amendments to the election bill, which is expected to be passed on Tuesday.
On Sunday night lawmakers and government officials were still debating some contentious issues, including the percentage of parliamentary threshold, legislator Andy Yuliani Paris said.
"The options so far are 1.5 percent, 2 percent and 3 percent (of the House seats)," Andi said.
The prevailing election law, which was passed in 2003, sets a 3 percent parliamentary threshold, which means political parties that failed to win at least 3 percent of House seats in 2004 will be unable to sit in the House as a separate faction and contest the 2009 polls.
Hadar said the House should adopt an electoral threshold, counted from the total votes, for reasons of practicality and fairness.
"The Parliament threshold is prone to protests from parties whose House seats are annulled or distributed to other parties because they cannot sit in the House," he said.
A group of 17 parties that failed to meet the parliamentary threshold demanded a judicial review of the policy last year, but the Constitutional Court rejected their motion.
Hadar also urged the House to drop an article requiring a legislative candidate to obtain at least 30 percent of the vote division number (BPP) to win automatic election.
"I think the figure is too high. People have the right to choose their representatives, therefore such a requirement is unnecessary," Hadar said.
BPP is calculated by dividing the number of votes with the number of legislative seats at stake in an electoral district.
The original draft of the election bill does not include the requirement.
In Bandung, State Secretary Hatta Radjasa said he was optimistic the election bill would be endorsed before the end of February.
He cited only a few number of articles that remained in dispute.
He said in the absence of the bill, the 2009 legislative elections would still run on schedule because the General Elections Commission had prepared a contingency plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment