Buleleng KPUD to print vote ballots in Surabaya

The Buleleng General Election Commission (KPUD) has been forced to print ballot papers in Surabaya, East Java, instead of locally, after hundreds of thousands of vote ballots were found damaged.

The KPUD will use the same company to print the ballot papers.

"Almost all of the ballot papers for the House of Representatives (DPR) were damaged while we are still inspecting the ballots for the Regional Representatives Council (DPD)," Buleleng KPUD chief, Luh Putu Sri Widiastini, said Tuesday.

"It seems that the DPD ballots were also damaged, so we will have the ballots printed in Surabaya."

Sri said ballot papers printed in Surabaya by several regencies had much better print quality.

"It seems to be because of a technical error, perhaps the printing machines are too old," she said.

"We do not want to take any risks and will print ballots for the provincial and regency legislative councils in Surabaya."

However, Buleleng KPUD is still waiting for the KPU in Jakarta for the damaged DPR and DPD ballots.

Buleleng KPUD has found some 450,000 ballot papers damaged because of red lines, dots or scratches in the columns for political parties.

The regency KPUD argued the marks could be wrongly counted as a legal vote.

KPUD member Nyoman Sutawan Bendesa said the damaged papers could cause problems in the future for having the dots and lines in columns containing the parties' names.

According to regulations, those marks are legal votes.

"In our opinion, those ballots should be returned, but we are still waiting for guidance from the KPU," Sutawan said.

"There should a legal reference to use the damaged ballots to prevent unwanted consequences in the future."

Sutawan said the Buleleng people were very sensitive to various problems especially concerning the general elections.

"The Buleleng people are very critical, so we have to work professionally according to existing regulations," he said.

Alit Kertaraharja , The Jakarta Post , Buleleng | Thu, 02/26/2009 1:59 PM | Bali