Poll fraud allegations circulate online

JAKARTA, Indonesia – As the General Elections Commission (KPU) carries out the long process of tabulating about 140 million votes cast on July 9, Indonesians have been submitting and circulating allegations of fraud online.

Both camps – Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and running mate Jusuf Kalla, as well as former general Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa – have claimed victory based on separate quick counts. (READ: Jokowi, Prabowo both claim victory in Indonesia’s polls)

Both have also claimed the other side could be cheating them. (READ: Jokowi: I won but monitor poll results and Jokowi claims risk ‘hijacking democracy’)

Many of the fraud allegations, which have been circulating on social media, involve photos of C1 forms – the tabulation sheet used at almost 480,000 polling centers throughout the country – that have erroneous calculations.

This tweet, for example, shows a C1 form from Pancoran, Jakarta, uploaded to the KPU website that lists 324 votes cast for Prabowo and Hatta while there were only 196 votes cast in total.  

Nah ada kecurangan lagi! Total suara Prabowo melebihi jumlah suara sah! @Bawaslu_RI @KPU_RI @kpu_dki pic.twitter.com/ItE5tDGyaA

— Dhyta (@purplerebel) July 13, 2014

There are several similar reports circulating online, as well as photos of blank C1 forms that are signed by election officials and witnesses. The problematic C1 photos are compiled on various sites, like this Tumbler account and MataMassa, a website developed by iLab and the Jakarta branch of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) to allow the public to submit reports through SMS, email and a mobile app. 

MataMassa, which translates to eye of the masses, has so far received 403 allegations of electoral violations, including vote count fraud, with 325 of them verified. MataMassa coordinator Muhammad Irham explained that the verification process includes documenting the name, address and phone number of the person who reported it.

All verified reports are submitted to the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), which then asks the local Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) to follow up on them.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, because the reports we get are from people with smartphones who take photos of the C1 forms and other violations and submit it to the app,” Irham told Rappler. He added that most of the reports came from big cities. 

Quick count results indicate that only about 6.5 million votes separate the two candidates. This means that if an average of 100 votes are shifted from half of the country’s 75,000 districts and cities, it will be enough to influence the final result. (READ: Prabowo’s game plan)

Bawaslu commissioner Nelson Simanjuntak told Tempo last week fraud would be easy to detect in a two-horse race such as this. “If there is something odd in the recapitulation at any level, Bawaslu can directly check with both sides,” he was quoted as saying.

“Cheating by both sides will be settled later by the KPU. There must be no cheating by anyone as this will degrade our democracy. Based on media reports, there is fraud taking place on both sides at the field level. Not just from one camp,” former Constitutional Court chief Mahfud MD, the spokesman for the Prabowo-Hatta camp, told Rappler.

As of Monday morning, KPU’s official website says 89.56% of the C1 forms have been tabulated at the district or city level. After this, the forms will be tabulated on a provincial level. The official result will be announced on July 22. – Rappler.com