Miscellaneous KPU Defends Positive Voters Rights For COVID-19 Pilkada Amid The Danger Of Transmission

JAKARTA - The General Election Commission (KPU) allows voters who are positive for COVID-19, whether they are being treated in hospital or in independent isolation, to exercise their voting rights in the 2020 Pilkada.

On election day, polling station officers will visit voters for positive COVID-19 patients to vote in places where voters undergo independent isolation or are hospitalized.

This then received criticism from various parties. One of them is an epidemiologist from the University of Indonesia, Pandu Riono via his Twitter account @ drpriono1. Pandu asked the KPU not to force positive voters for COVID-19 to vote.

"People who are being treated at the hospital should not be forced to vote. Voting is voluntary, and if it is healthy and conscious. If it is implemented it can endanger the lives of sick people and officers. Use common sense," tweeted Pandu.

People who are being treated at the hospital DO NOT be forced to vote. Voting is voluntary, and when healthy and conscious. If implemented, it can endanger the lives of sick people and officers. Use common sense.

- The Plague (@ drpriono1) December 3, 2020

The Twitter account @shi_hidayat was also criticized. As a person who works in health services, he asked the KPU to consider the policy of positive patients using their voting rights.

Sorry, please reconsider. Safety of MPW and witnesses, as well as the risk of contamination of ballot papers and ballot boxes. Remember, transmission is not only by droplets and airborne, but also by contact with a patient's body part that has been contaminated with droplets, such as hands.

- S Hidayat, MD, MPH (@shi_dayat) December 2, 2020

In response to this criticism, the KPU is in a dilemma. RI KPU commissioner, I Dewa Raka Sandi, said that this policy was solely carried out in order to facilitate the voting rights of every citizen who meets the requirements to exercise their voting rights.

"The KPU is of the view that a person's suffrage is a very basic constitutional right. KPU is committed to safeguarding, protecting and facilitating it. So, it is regulated in PKPU that the closest KPPS will provide services," Dewa said, Friday, December 4.

Dewa said, if the KPU does not facilitate voters to use their voting rights, in the contest the voters are infected with COVID-19, then the KPU will violate statutory regulations. The KPU can be sued through legal channels.

"The KPU's effort is to seriously protect and protect the right to vote. Because if we are proven to have deliberately eliminated the right to vote, this will also have legal consequences," said Dewa.

Services for the use of voting rights for positive voters are regulated in Articles 72 and 73 of KPU Regulation Number 6 of 2020. Initially, election officials worked together with the local COVID-19 Handling Task Force to collect voter data no later than 1 day before polling day.

Regency / city KPU shall provide voters with the A.5-KWK model form as referred to in letter a no later than the day before voting day.

Then, two KPPS members who were close to a hospital and a house where self-isolation had taken their voting equipment to the hospital where the positive voters for COVID-19 were located.

The arrival of the KPPS was accompanied by supervisors and witnesses. KPPS which is tasked with visiting voters using complete personal protective equipment along with hazmat suits.