In This Country Where Election Officials Have an Extreme Job... 57 Already Dead

At least 57 people have reportedly died in connection with Indonesia's general and presidential elections.

On the 14th (local time), a woman is placing a ballot paper into a ballot box at a polling station in Jimbaran, Bali, Indonesia. [Image source=Yonhap News]

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On the 18th (local time), Antara News Agency cited statistics from the Indonesian Ministry of Health, reporting that at least 57 people have died in the recent general and presidential elections. As of February 17, election-related deaths occurred in 14 provinces. These include 29 regional voting committee members (KPPS), 10 community protection agency staff, 9 observers, 6 election officials, 2 polling station staff, and 1 election management agency member. By region, West Java recorded 13 deaths, East Java 12, Central Java 11, and Jakarta 6. By age, 18 polling station staff aged between 41 and 50 years died.

The causes of death included ▲heart disease ▲accidents ▲acute respiratory distress syndrome ▲hypertension ▲cerebrovascular disease and multiple organ failure. Additionally, 8,381 polling station staff are currently receiving treatment in hospitals.

In the presidential and legislative elections held on February 14, more than 203 million eligible voters residing in Indonesia gathered at 821,061 polling stations to cast their votes. Indonesian authorities plan to announce the final manual vote count results by March 20.

Previously, in the presidential, general, and local elections held in April 2019, 894 people including election officials and police officers died, and 5,175 showed signs of health problems. This was interpreted as being due to all vote counting being done manually, with election officials working overnight and continuing the count into the next day to meet deadlines. The Indonesian Election Commission announced a policy this year to restrict election officials to ages 17 to 55 to prevent such incidents from recurring in this year's presidential and general elections.

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