Ahead of Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election, a video was shared thousands of times alongside a false claim that it showed the final poll results for overseas Indonesians living in six countries in Asia and the Middle East. The clip appeared to show Prabowo Subianto leading the count. The count of overseas votes would begin only on February 14, 2024 — days after the false posts appeared, with the counting of mail-in ballots from overseas set to be completed on February 22.
“Results of overseas polls” reads overlaid text on a video on X shared more than 1,500 times on February 7, 2024, one week before the final results of the Indonesian presidential election were revealed.
The 27-second video purports to show the percentage of votes from Indonesians living abroad for the archipelago nation’s presidential candidates: Prabowo Subianto, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, and their respective running mates.
The post claims to show final voting results from Malaysia, Singapore, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan.
AFP could not verify where the footage was filmed but in the clip, a ballot box with text referring to Indonesia’s General Elections Commission (KPU) and the 2024 general elections can be seen.
“Got this from TikTok, result of polls overseas,” reads the tweet accompanying the clip, which purportedly shows the tandem of Prabowo and Gibran Rakabuming Raka — son of outgoing President Jokowi Widodo — leading the count with more than 75 per cent and 88 per cent of the vote.
Some of the 1.7 million Indonesians registered to vote overseas had started casting their ballots in polling stations, at mobile ballot boxes and by mail when the video circulated (archived link).
They were part of nearly 205 million who were eligible to vote in Indonesia’s presidential, parliamentary and regional polls.
The final count for both local and overseas votes began on February 14, 2024.
Clips with a similar false claim also circulated in other video-sharing platforms such as TikTok here, here, here and here; and SnackVideo here, racking up more than 5,500 shares and over 854,700 views.
Hoax posts
The posts circulating on X are a hoax, the KPU’s commissioner Idham Kholik told AFP on February 9, 2024.
In a media statement, KPU chairman Hasyim Asy’ari also said: “Overseas vote count results published before 14 February 2024 are not true” (archived link).
The technical guidelines of the 2024 poll also specified that votes cast overseas would only be counted from February 14 (archived link).
Idham also told local news outlet Kompas.com that votes from mobile ballot boxes and overseas polling stations would be counted from February 14 to 15, while counting of votes from mail-in ballots would be conducted from February 15 until 22 (archived link).
While ballots for mail-in voting were distributed from January 2 to 11, voting in polling stations set up by the Indonesian embassies and consulate generals varied (archived links here and here).
In Singapore, Tokyo, Osaka and Kuala Lumpur, in-person voting took place on February 11, several days after the misleading video circulated online (archived links here, here, here and here).
Before that, voting was held in Jeddah and Riyadh on February 9 and in South Korea on February 10 (archived links here, here and here).
Voting in polling stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou was scheduled for February 14 (archived links here, here and here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about Indonesia’s 2024 elections here.
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