The Minister Of Communication And Information Supports The Digitization Of Elections By Implementing E-Voting

JAKARTA - In the Coordinating Meeting for the Digitization of Elections for the Digitalization of Indonesia, the Minister of Communication and Information, Johny G. Plate, assessed that digitalization in elections is very possible. Many countries have implemented e-voting.

"The adoption of digital technology in election activities has the benefit of realizing effectiveness and efficiency in the legitimate political contestation process, both at the voter stage, voter identity verification, voting, vote counting to transmission and tabulation of election results," he said in a press release, Tuesday, 22 March.

Johny said that India has implemented the digitization of the electoral process using blockchain to support elections.

"Currently India is now using it! India is using blockchain to support televoting in general elections. It is hoped that this can be realized in the upcoming 2024 Indian general election, just like us. So if we do benchmarks and studies on information exchange and knowledge, and experience can be done with them," he said.

Citing data from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Minister Johnny stated that the e-voting process has been used in 34 countries.

The implementation of e-voting involves election management bodies or electoral management boards on a national or sub-national scale, such as the election of regional legislators.

"This is what we really need to pay attention to and the trend of digitizing elections can be seen from the variety of visions and their adoption in the voting stages in several countries in the world," he said.

The Minister of Communication and Information also assessed that the digitalization trend is characterized by four characteristics, namely the presence of digital innovation as a solution, data and communication flows, characteristics of accelerated communication rates, and commodification of electronic data.

However, to realize digital transformation in the election process, the Minister of Communication and Information said digital infrastructure is very important and must be developed optimally. With that later, digital elections can be carried out.

Currently, the Ministry of Communication and Information is and will continue to carry out digital infrastructure throughout the country, and invites all ranks of the KPU to take part in concrete national digitalization in order to accelerate digital transformation in Indonesia.

"Seeing the title of the current digitalization meeting, I believe that the KPU with its extensive network throughout Indonesia will be able to encourage the acceleration of digital transformation," he said.