"KPU officials must consider clauses of the elections law before simplifying the ballot papers," Hakim, who serves as vice chairman of the House's Commission II, said in Jakarta on Friday.
Detailed clauses of Law No. 7 of 2017 on Election might hinder KPU's plan to simplify ballot papers for voters' convenience, effective ballot counting, and efficient election conduct, this member of parliament (MP) pointed out.
"The current elections law has a detailed regulation on the ballot paper, and efforts to change the ballot paper might be futile if the election law is not revised," he said.
The simplified ballot paper must be designed to ease the resolution of post-election disputes and cater to cross-constituency voters who would be restricted to voting only for the national executive, the National Awakening Party (PKB) legislator noted.
"For instance, my ID card is registered in Central Java but I decide to vote in Jakarta instead; hence, because I am a cross-constituency voter, I ought to vote only for the President. An issue may arise if all elected offices are integrated into a single ballot paper because by then I could vote for all offices despite my voting right being restricted," the legislator pointed out.
Earlier, the KPU performed a voting and ballot-counting simulation in Bali on Thursday (December 2, 2021). The election commission tested two redesigned ballot papers -- a unified model and a three-sheet model -- for the 2024 general elections.
KPU commissioner Arief Budiman expressed the hope that the simulation would help identify flaws and issues that can be rectified to improve the election conduct formula conceived by the KPU and the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).
"We hope this process concludes with the completion of the electoral conduct formula by the KPU and Bawaslu. Because we still have many stages to go, we still have time until 2024 to conceive the most effective election conduct and ballot design formula," Budiman remarked.
After the conclusion of the simulation, the KPU will conduct an evaluation before presenting the evaluation report to the DPR and the government, he added.
Translator: Imam B, Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
