KPU STOPS PROCESSING REQUESTS FOR ADDITIONAL BALLOT PAPERS

Jakarta, March 31 (ANTARA) - The General Elections Commission (KPU) has since Tuesday stopped processing requests for additional ballot papers for the April 9 legislative elections, KPU Chairman Abdul Hafiz Anshary said.

The KPU chairman said here on Tuesday that the deadline of requests for ballot papers was 00:00 hours on Monday. Thus, the regional offices of KPU could no longer submit requests for additional ballots.

He said the deadline was set because KPU continued to receive requests for additional ballot papers while in fact the requests were made not 100 percent based on real need.

"After we calculated it the number of ballot papers is actually already enough," the KPU chairman said.

He said there would be no additional ballot papers would be provided except if the ballot papers were damaged due to a natural disaster.

KPU, he said, had distributed a total of 5.77 million additional ballot papers which were printed to meet the shortage as a result of the increase in the number of fixed voters' lists or to replace those found damaged. Besides, there were also 100,000 ballot papers printed to replace damaged ones due to disasters.

So, the total number of additional ballot papers distributed throughout the country reached 5.9 million.***1***