Election Visit Program in 2018

From 26-27 June, representatives from AGENDA participated in the 2018 Election Visit Program (EVP) organized by the Indonesian General Election Commission (KPU) in Surabaya, East Java. The program’s main objectives were to share knowledge and information on Indonesia’s different elections and to observe the regional head elections in East Java. EMBs from six countries (Fiji, Timor-Leste, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt and Nepal) as well as representatives from another six countries (USA, Denmark, Spain, Sri Lanka, Australia and Germany) participated in the EVP 2018 program alongside and representatives from academia and local and international organizations. The program provided a general seminar on Indonesia’s elections to the observation program on June 26. Three main issues related to disability access were identified based on the observation of  four  polling stations in Surabaya City and Bangkalan Regency: (1) inaccurate information on the types of disabilities included in the Final Voter List; (2) poor design quality of the braille template used in the governor elections which rendered the braille font illegible, whereas the regency election’s braille template in Bangkalan was not properly folded when produced and was therefore unusable; and (3) paths to polling stations which were set up on uneven terrain, steps inside polling stations and ballot boxes that were too high for wheelchair users or little people. Despite the relatively festive settings, field visitors raised minor technical issues during observation, such as polling station workers verifying voters based on attendance lists rather than Fixed Voters Lists (DPT) or discrepancies between the total number of eligible voters in the printed versions on information boards and the online source launched by the KPU.