In Anticipation of Next Year’s Election, Indonesian Government Launches Online Voter Database

Credit: geocurrents

The Indonesian government has been embracing the internet as of late, and yesterday the General Elections Commission (KPU) put the temporary voter list (DPS) online to help citizens check their voter status more easily. The online list, which can be accessed through KPU.go.id, was built in preparation for the upcoming presidential election next year. This latest feature is definitely a step up for the Indonesian voting process.

The temporary voter list has been one of the most common problems in the Indonesian election process since bygone days. Past issues with the list include people who are already dead still being on it, recording the same person multiple times (which becomes a problem if that person takes advantage of it to vote multiple times), and not listing people who should have voting rights. The new online list solves that last problem, as now people can check long before the election starts to see if they are a registered voter. And if not, they can immediately register themselves at the appropriate government office.

Checking your voter status is quite simple; you just need to input your identity number in the search box. Afterwards you can see your voter data, including your identity and designated voting venue. So far there are about 177 million temporary registered voters on KPU’s offline database and 104 million of them are already in the new online system.

The offline database is not yet complete though, as there are data from three Indonesian provinces – South Sulawesi, Northern Maluku, and Papua – not yet registered to KPU’s database. As to why the online database conversion isn’t finished yet, it is because there are a few issues like small bandwidth in regional government offices that slows the sending of online database to the central office.

The Indonesian government has been implementing more online solutions recently. The last Jakarta governor election used an e-counting voting system, while the central government just launched an information portal called Open Government Indonesia.

(Sources: Detik and BeritaSatu)

(Editing by Charlie Custer and Anh-Minh Do)