REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MANOKWARI -- Chairman of the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) of West Papua Province Elias Idie confirmed that voters are not allowed to use mobile phones while at the polling booth to distribute electoral voting rights.
It is listed in article 25 point e of Regulation of the General Election Commission (PKPU) Number 25 of 2023 on Voting and Counting of Votes in Elections.
“The principle of distributing voting rights is secret, so mobile phones cannot be brought to the voting booth,” Elias Idie said in Manokwari on Tuesday (13/2/2024).
Bawaslu, he said, will tighten surveillance of all polling stations in West Papua when election day is on February 14, 2024.
The ban on the use of mobile phones is an attempt to minimize the potential for electoral fraud, especially the political practices of money that hurt the quality of democratic parties.
“Bring your mobile phone to the voting booth, you can conclude that you want a photo of the election results and then send it to a specific person,” Elias said.
He said the supervisors who were alerted to monitor the vote until the vote count of 3,005 people included 258 district level supervisors, 824 village/ward level supervisors, and 1,923 polling station supervisors.
Thousands of adhoc supervisors will serve in seven districts in West Papua, namely Manokwari Regency, South Manokwari Regency, Arfak Mountains Regency, Bintuni Teluk Regency, Wondama Bay Regency, Kaimana Regency, and Fakfak Regency.
“Election supervisors are at the forefront of determining the quality of elections,” Elias said.
He acknowledged that the number of election supervisors from both Bawaslu province, Bawaslu district and adhoc supervisors was very limited, so an active role of witnesses was required for each election contestation.
Bawaslu continues to coordinate with the local government, TNI-police, religious leaders, indigenous figures, community leaders, youth figures, including political parties to achieve peaceful and safe elections.
“Let's keep an eye on the voting and counting of votes so that the 2024 election is successful and quality,” Elias said.
Chairman of KPU West Papua Paskalis Semunya explained that voting booths are very secret areas so that the activity of distributing voting rights by each voter is unknown to others.
Linmas who are on duty at each polling station will later prevent voters from bringing their mobile phones with them to the voting booth.
“If there is a movement in the voting booth, the linmas have the right to stop. We ask people to abide by these rules,” Paskalis said.
For information, the list of permanent electorates in West Papua is 385,465 electors (196,570 men and 188,895 women) with 1,923 polling stations spread across 86 districts in seven districts.
The need for ballots of each type be it president-vice presidential candidate, DPD RI candidate, DPR RI candidate, provincial parliament candidate, and district parliament for seven regions in West Papua reached 394,058 sheets including two percent of the reserve ballots.
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