Election Procedure Violations Result in a Re-Vote

Legal counsel, witnesses, and experts while attending the 2024 legislative election results dispute of the Province/Regency of East Kalimantan on Thursday, May 30, 2024 in Courtroom Panel 2 of the Constitutional Court. Photo by MKRITeguh.

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court held a follow-up examination hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of Province/Regency, filed by the Democratic Party on Thursday, May 30, 2024. The session's agenda included hearing witness/expert testimonies, examining, and verifying additional evidence.

In the hearing of Case No. 219-01-14-23/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024, the parties whose testimonies were heard included the Petitioner's expert, Hendriansyah Hamzah, and witnesses Raihan Al Biruni and Habibi. Meanwhile, the Respondent presented witnesses Nina Mawaddah, Hamzah, Muchammad Amin, Imam Sutedjo Kurniawan, and M. Indra. Additionally, the Related Party (National Mandate Party) introduced an expert, Aswanto, and several witnesses.

In the presence of Panel 2 of the Constitutional Court, presided over by Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra, along with Constitutional Justices Ridwan Mansyur and Arsul Sani, Hendriansyah Hamzah explained that procedural errors during the general elections are tantamount to jeopardizing the voting rights of every citizen. In other words, these errors threaten the integrity of the electoral process, thus necessitating a return to the initial procedures to preserve these fundamental rights.

"Specifically, the absence of an attendance list during voting impacts the voting rights of citizens. Therefore, if any procedural processes are violated, to safeguard these rights, we must revert to the original process in the form of a re-vote," explained Hendriansyah.

Problematic Polling Station

Raihan Al Biruni, the director of the NasDem party's witness commission for East Kutai Regency and a mandated witness at the East Kutai KPU, reported vote inflation carried out by the North Sangatta District Election Committee (PPK) for the Regency/City Legislative Council. This was done by adding 782 votes to the initial tally of 14,343 votes for the Golkar Party, bringing the total to 15,125 votes.

"During the district plenary session, the appendices for each polling station were not attached. We were not given the opportunity to review them, and at the end of the session, we were forced to sign if we wanted to see the appendices. There were issues at 236 polling stations, as reported by the witnesses present at each station," Raihan stated.

Habibi, the head of the Democratic Party's witness agency for East Kutai and a mandated witness in North Sangatta District, echoed similar concerns. He mentioned that during the 11-day district-level recapitulation process, his team discovered information about vote inflation carried out by the District Election Committee (PPK), but they were unable to perform data verification between C.Results and D.Results.

"We only became aware after receiving the appendices for the North Sangatta area and found several discrepancies. For instance, at polling station 125, there was an increase in PAN votes where the C.Results showed 0 and D.Results showed 4 votes. Similarly, at polling station 16, the PAN votes increased from 3 to 10," explained Habibi.

Correction Verified

Nina Mawaddah, a member of the Samarinda City Election Commission, described in the Respondent's testimony issues at 41 polling stations, where an addition of 111 PAN votes was alleged in several districts, including Samarinda Hulu, Samarinda Hilir, Samarinda Utara, and Samarinda Kota. "The C.Copy used by the Petitioner was an uncorrected version. The recapitulation in Samarinda took place from February 16 to 29, 2024. The disputed polling stations have been corrected, including those where there were discrepancies between the C.Copy held by the witnesses and the data we followed in the C.Results," stated Nina.

Verification of Truth

Aswanto, an expert presented by the Related Party, stated that if there are errors during the recapitulation of vote counting at the district level, the integrity of the vote tally can be maintained by matching data with the C.Results Copy held by party witnesses and the District Election Committee (PPK), which can then be compared by those contesting the changes at the district level. If this is not possible, the opening of the ballot box may only be conducted after a recommendation is issued.

Furthermore, Aswanto mentioned that in relation to this, the Court, within its authority in Election Results Disputes (PHPU), can also conduct vote counting and recapitulation anew. The MK is capable of performing verifications similar to those done by the Polling Committee (PPS) and the District Election Committee (PPK).

"For instance, if there are issues with the votes at a polling station, then the Constitutional Court (MK) will compare the C.Results Copies from the party, the election supervisors, and the District Election Committee (PPK). This is done to verify the truthfulness, as such data can be presented by requesting it as evidence from the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), which is obtained from the Polling Committee (PPS). If there are still discrepancies in the vote count data from these three sources, then the MK can perform a data comparison with the C.Results at each respective level. It is important to note that the C.Results used are those sourced from the ballot box. This is because the C.Results within the ballot box are more securely preserved in terms of data integrity as they are sealed, containing figures and tallies, thus they can be matched with the numbers written on the evidence sheet," explained Aswanto.

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Vote Margin Between the Democratic Party and PAN in the East Kalimantan Electoral District

As known, during the Preliminary Hearing on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, the Petitioner requested that the Constitutional Court annul the General Elections Commission Decision No. 360 of 2024 regarding the electoral area of East Kalimantan for the filling of candidates for DPR membership. In the comparison of the correct vote tallies, according to the Respondent, PAN received 111,141 votes, whereas, according to the Petitioner, it should have been 110,775 votes, resulting in a difference of 366 votes. Meanwhile, the vote tally for the Democratic Party according to the Respondent was 110,752 votes, and according to the Petitioner, it was 110,935 votes, thus a difference of 183 votes.

The Petitioner clarified that the difference in vote tallies occurred due to discrepancies between the Model C.Results DPR/Copy and Model D.Results for the District-DPR across nine municipalities/cities in the East Kalimantan electoral district. Consequently, this resulted in an alleged alteration of results, including an addition of 366 votes for PAN and a reduction of 183 votes for the Petitioner. Based on these assertions, the Petitioner requests the Court to issue a decision by establishing the correct vote tallies according to the Petitioner for the DPR membership in the East Kalimantan electoral district, where the Democratic Party would receive 110,935 votes, while PAN would receive 110,775 votes.

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Election Procedure Violations Result in a Re-Vote