VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Indonesian General Elections Commission (KPU) uses special mechanisms in General Election 2019. Through a special mechanism called the drop box, KPU seeks to increase the participation of Indonesian citizens abroad, especially those working in the plantation sector with limited access. This was conveyed by the Chairman of the General Election Commission of the Republic of Indonesia, Arief Budiman, after handing over Data of Potential Resident of Voters from the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office, Jakarta, Wednesday (14/2).

"Every country has its own kinds of mechanism. The problem is, for example, there is one country which citizens mostly work in plantations. They live in shelters in the middle of the plantations. Well that is our difficulty. Hence there is one mechanism called the drop box. So we bring ballot boxes there. We invite our citizens, then they use their rights to vote there. Then we bring the box home, and we count on the day of voting," said Arief Budiman.

Arief Budiman added that so far according to data collected by the General Election Commission, the number of permanent voters abroad in the 2019 General Election is more than 2 million people. According to him, the data has been much better than previous compiled data, because it has been through the process of cleaning or recounting. In addition, reflecting on the experience of the previous General Election, one of the biggest challenges that must be faced related to the data collection of Indonesian citizens who will participate in the 2019 General Election is the mobility of Indonesian citizens, both between cities in the same country or different countries. (VOI/ Rezha/AHM)