Indonesia to probe warehouse of voting papers in Malaysia

Indonesia’s Election Commission said Thursday it was sending officials to investigate after videos circulated online of thousands of voting papers for next week’s polls scattered throughout a warehouse in neighboring Malaysia.

One of the videos shows police at the warehouse in Malaysia’s Selangor state and people holding up voting papers and commenting they’d been marked in favor of Indonesian President Joko Widodo and legislative candidates for parties in his coalition.

Election Commission official Ilham Saputra said the commission “will immediately set up a team and send its members there to ascertain what really happened.”

The Indonesian presidential and legislative elections are set for Wednesday.

Saputra said Indonesians living in Malaysia would vote on Sunday and voting papers had been sent to the country a week ago.

He said the overseas election commission advised that it hadn’t rented a shophouse in Malaysia, a term for a low-rise business premise that also doubles as a residence.

Opinion polls from the second half of March showed Widodo had a large lead over his challenger, former special forces general Prabowo Subianto, but undecided voters as high as 20%.