Awareness of updating data needed to increase voter participation: overseas election committee

The Indonesian Overseas Election Committee (PPLN) for New York City noted that public awareness is needed to update data regularly to increase voter participation abroad.

PPLN-New York has found that many eligible Indonesian voters are not on the final voter list (DPT) for the 2024 General Elections, said Hendra Parley, a member of the election committee.

He informed that this is due to the unavailability of regularly updated data on the latest residential addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of Indonesian citizens in the PPLN-New York's administrative areas.

Thus, when PPLN-New York personnel conducted early-stage data matching, many prospective voters in the administrative areas did not provide confirmation, Parley told ANTARA on Wednesday.

Therefore, it is necessary to update data on a regular basis as the movements of Indonesians overseas are not well-recorded, he explained.

For example, several eligible voters, whose names were registered in the DPT for the 2019 General Elections, were recorded as residents of New York City. However, since then, they have moved to other cities, he said.

Their movements have resulted in a change in their residential addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers, he said, adding that those who have yet to get registered in the DPT may be on the DPKLN.

Thanks to their self-awareness, many voters have contacted PPLN-New York to apply for "moving to vote" and get registered on the DPKLN, he informed.

With regard to voting day, Parley said PPLN-New York has chosen February 10, 2024, to be the day when 2,532 of the 11,141 eligible voters cast their ballots at the polling station.

February 10 has been chosen to be the voting day.

The polling station will only be set up in New York as the majority of voters who are scheduled to cast their votes reside in the city, he said, adding that PPLN-New York serves registered voters in 13 states.

The states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia.

Therefore, PPLN-New York is offering two other voting options to voters. A total of 6,647 voters will cast their votes through postal services and 1,962 others through mobile voting boxes, he informed.

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This news has been corrected.