The Petitioners conveying the petition at the preliminary hearing for the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Friday (8/22/2025). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held the preliminary hearing for the material judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections on Friday, August 22, 2025. The petition for case No. 141/PUU-XXIII/2025 was filed by retired state civil apparatus (ASN) of the Ministry of Finance Almizan Ulfa, lecturer Wazri Abdullah Afifi, and three other petitioners.

At the hearing, the Petitioners appeared without legal counsel and argued that the provisions of the Election Law regulating tiered manual recapitulation—Article 393 paragraph (2), Article 397 paragraph (1), Article 398 paragraph (2), Article 402 paragraph (2), and Article 405 paragraph (2)—are prone to manipulation. They contended that manual recapitulation opens opportunities for fraud, manipulation, and falsification of election results in a structured, systematic, and massive (TSM) manner.

“The Petitioners’ constitutional harm will persist unless the Constitutional Court declares the articles a quo unconstitutional and without binding legal force,” stated Ahmad Suardi, the third Petitioner, before the panel of justices led by Chief Justice Suhartoyo.

The first Petitioner, Almizan Ulfa, added that the tiered manual recapitulation system functions like an “assembly line,” passing through several levels from the district election committee (PPK), the Regency/City Elections Commission (KPU), the Provincial KPU, up to the Central KPU. In his view, such a process magnifies the risk of TSM electoral fraud.

The Petitioners further argued that such vulnerabilities were evident in a number of cases during the 2024 Election, including the case of Tia Rahmania in the electoral district of Banten I, a dispute in East Aceh Regency, cases concerning the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) election, as well as findings in 20 Constitutional Court rulings on the 2024 election result disputes (PHPU).

To prevent electoral fraud, the Petitioners proposed that election result data be disclosed transparently in CSV, Excel, or SQL formats accessible to the public on a regular basis. This, they argued, would enable millions of citizens to participate in monitoring the recapitulation process, rather than relying solely on the limited number of official election supervisors.

“The accuracy would be nearly 100 percent if validated against copies of the C-Result forms. For this reason, tiered manual recapitulation is no longer relevant,” Almizan asserted. He maintained that vote counting and recapitulation should be conducted entirely through a transparent and accountable electronic system.

Accordingly, in their petitums, the Petitioners requested the Court to grant the petition in full. They asked the Court to declare Article 393 paragraph (2), Article 397 paragraph (1), Article 398 paragraph (2), Article 402 paragraph (2), and Article 405 paragraph (2) of the Election Law unconstitutional and without binding legal force. They also requested the Court to declare Article 381 paragraph (1) of the Election Law—originally stating, “The KPU, Provincial KPU, Regency/City KPU, and PPLN (Overseas Elections Committee) shall conduct the vote counting of Election Participants in a transparent and accountable manner”— conditionally unconstitutional. They argued that the provision should instead read: “The KPU, Provincial KPU, and Regency/City KPU shall conduct electronic vote counting of Election Participants in a transparent and accountable manner by fully facilitating online public verification of the KPU’s results and independent counts immediately, periodically, and at all times.”

In response to the petition, Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh advised the Petitioners to carefully examine petitions previously submitted to the Court. He also urged them to reconsider the provisions they are challenging.

The panel of justices gave the Petitioner 14 days to revise the petition, which must be resubmitted no later than September 4 at 12:00 WIB.

Author         : Utami Argawati
Editor          : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR               : Fauzan Febriyan
Translator     : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian versions, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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