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Pollsters group to probe vote results of two that deviated from majority

Jakarta Globe - July 9, 2014

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Camelia Pasandaran, Jakarta – The ethics council of a pollsters' group in Indonesia will begin an investigation into two polling stations that reported results on the presidential election that deviated from the majority.

The Indonesian Survey and Public Opinion Association (Persepi) will ask seven of its members that released preliminary results of the presidential election to publicly announce their methodology. It will also summon two polling institutions, Puskaptis (Center of Policy and Strategic Development) and the Indonesian Voting Network (JSI), both of which had results counter to the majority of pollsters.

"The audit result will be announced to the public in less than a week," Hamdi Muluk, a member of Persepi's ethics council, said at a press conference on Wednesday. "This needs to be done to prevent the democratic political process from being tainted by opportunist polling stations that manipulate data for certain political interests."

At least 10 pollsters conducted quick counts of the presidential elections. Of those, seven showed that presidential candidate Joko Widodo and his running mate Jusuf Kalla had a lead of 4 to 6 percentage points over rivals Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa. Three polls, meanwhile, showed that Prabowo and Hatta had a gain of 1 to 4 percentage points over the Joko-Kalla ticket.

Results from the polls have been used by both Joko and Prabowo to declare their victories.

Hamdi said that the result of the audit would be announced in less than a week, to prevent the results of the polling stations from affecting people's sentiments and further dividing the nation. "Logically, if there are 10 polling stations, of which seven said A, and three said B, then the majority that said A is right," Hamdi said.

Of 10 polling institutions that conducted the quick count, seven are members of Persepi. Hamdi said they could not investigate the National Survey Institution (LSN) – which also had results that deviated from the majority – because LSN is not a member.

Yunarto Wijaya, secretary of Persepi, said that the significant difference in the quick count result should be investigated to prevent chaos.

"Puskaptis has twice issued different results – which turned out to be the wrong result – on the gubernatorial election of South Sumatra. It created conflict, and the director was once caught by the police [after being accused of manipulating the results]," Yunarto said.

Andrinof Chaniago, another Persepi member, said that they would summon the two pollsters in order for them to clarify the different results. If anything suspicious is discovered, they would ask the pollsters to provide data for audit, before deciding whether they unintentionally made the mistake, or were intentionally lying to the public.

"We will check their methodology, their data, calling the field coordinators," Andrinof said. "We will also find out who funded their quick count. If the methodology is right, the result should not have been significantly different [from that of other pollsters]."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/pollsters-group-probe-early-vote-results-two-deviated-majority/.