Voters have been granted the right to know who the winner of the upcoming legislative elections is within a few hours of the ballots closing, a court has ruled.
In defense of the public's right to know and in honor of academic freedom, the Constitutional Court announced Monday that pollsters can announce their quick count results throughout voting day, effectively allowing political surveys to become a trademark of the country’s elections.
In a 6-3 majority ruling, the court scrapped Article 245 of Election Law No. 10/2008 which banned the announcement of quick count results on election day, determining the stipulation went against the public’s constitutional right to access knowledge.
The prior article ruled that quick count results could not be announced during the “cooling off period” three days prior to voting day and could only be released a day following the election. Any violation of this ruling could have resulted in imprisonment.
The court has now revised the election law four times, with the most significant change being the adoption of the open list to replace the decade-old party list system of election.
During the hearing Monday, the majority of judges rejected the government’s argument that survey results announced in proximity to voting day could skew voter opinion to favor a certain candidate.
“There is no hard evidence that quick count results conducted in a democratic country can affect election results to favor a particular candidate,” presiding judge and the court chief justice Mohammad Mahfud MD said.
“Furthermore, quick counts, by definition, should be delivered quickly. Disallowing survey institutes to announce their results close to election day would be contradictory to its purpose.”
Quick count results conducted by a number of survey institutes during the 2004 presidential election and the regional elections held between 2007 and 2008 were generally proven accurate.
Three judges, Arsyad Sanusi, Akil Mochtar and Achmad Sodiki, voted against the change.
Sodiki said allowing quick counts to be announced around election day could offer an unfair advantage to the major parties which could potentially hire survey institutes to release favorable results.
“This industry is not free from the manipulation of big capital owners. Allowing these survey institutes to act freely will be an unfair disadvantage to smaller parties,” judge Achmad said.
After the hearing, petitioners from the Indonesian Public Opinion Research Association (AROPI) celebrated their victory.
AROPI chief Denny Yanuar Ali called the ruling a victory to pollsters across Indonesia, which he claimed “came in one package with a democracy.”
“This ruling has rejuvenated the health of our democracy and reaffirmed its appreciation of the country’s scientific community,” Denny said.
Andrinof Chaniago, a political analyst and chairman of the Cirus Surveyors Group polling company, welcomed the court’s decision.
“The ruling has straightened out the government’s erroneous assumption that the public can be easily swayed by polling results. The public are not so foolish to just base all their decision on polls,” he said.
When asked whether quick counts could affect the outcome in provinces where elections were not held simultaneously, Andrinof said they would not have any adverse effects as long as the voting population was small.
The General Election Commission (KPU) hinted that elections in certain regencies in the Catholic-majority East Nusa Tenggara province may be postponed due to schedule clashes with religious holidays.
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