Sirekap was initially introduced as a vote-counting tool during the 2020 elections, but it has returned for the 2024 elections under the backing of the General Election Commission (KPU).
Viewed as a vehicle for transparency, Sirekap was highlighted by the Center for Digital Society (CfDS) at UGM on Friday (Mar. 8) as part of their assessment of the 2024 elections in the Digital and Election Issues (DESUS) series.
The pivotal role of information technology in conducting elections cannot be overstated. With Indonesia’s vast expanse and population of 270 million, an effective and efficient simultaneous voting process is paramount.
Since the 2004 elections, the government has been harnessing the power of e-Rekap through Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). This technology has continuously developed, incorporating evaluations to streamline the vote tallying process, from scanning C1 forms and data entry to leveraging optical character recognition (OCR) and optical mark recognition (OMR).
Sirekap, accessible to Polling Station Working Groups (KPPS) via Android and a dedicated website, directly transmits data to the KPU. The transparency it offers is why the KPU favored Sirekap over the Vote Counting Information System (Situng). However, many KPPS members encountered difficulties accessing Sirekap on election day.
“Numerous reports surfaced about Sirekap’s inaccessibility and functionality issues during the election. Consequently, KPPS uploaded the results of the C forms to Google Drive. Interestingly, the number of valid votes at polling stations surpassed the number of registered voters,” elaborated Nurul Amalia Salabi, Program Officer at the Association for Elections and Democracy Foundation (Perludem).
Each upload of voting results undergoes verification before appearing in the election results diagram on the KPU website. Yet, unverified data accumulations led to some data pending verification, prompting the KPU to halt the election results display temporarily.
This spurred public discourse on X regarding Sirekap’s technical glitches. Data revealed that 85% of negative sentiments toward Sirekap stemmed from 90,380 tweets by the public.
“Sirekap’s weaknesses undeniably erode public trust in the KPU. Netizens voiced concerns over data conversion errors, leading to discrepancies in displayed data. Moreover, suspicions arose regarding system manipulation, application deficiencies, transparency issues, data integrity, security lapses, and personal anecdotes related to Sirekap,” highlighted Salabi.
CfDS researcher Iradat Wirid believes transparency is critical in assessing election integrity. However, public awareness about Sirekap’s intricacies was lacking from the outset. The interim election results on the KPU website were not explicitly identified as preliminary.
Furthermore, the KPU’s handling of Sirekap issues left much to be desired. Consequently, public discontent surged, resulting in negative sentiments toward the KPU’ ’s management of the electoral process.
“Public perception was that technology could streamline processes and cut costs. Yet, with no official statements and an inadequate response strategy, coupled with removing the election results diagram, transparency has taken a hit as the public senses concealment,” Iradat Wirid elucidated.
Author: Tasya