Determinants of Preventive Behavioral Measures in Polling Stations during General Election in Indonesia

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Various preventive measures have been taken aimed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which caused major changes in most aspects of human life. One of activities impacted by the presence of the disease is national or regional elections. To prevent the spread of the disease during the election, the Indonesian General Election Commission issued a regulation to control the COVID-19 transmission. However, there was lack of information regarding the implementation of the COVID-19 preventive behavioral measures in polling stations during the election. AIM: The objective of this study is aimed to: (1) Describe and analyze determinants of the implementation of preventive behavioral measures implementation in polling stations during the local election and (2) examine differences of the COVID-19 daily cases before and after the local election in Indonesia. METHODS: The design of this study is cross-sectional. The data were collected in the election day until the next 7 days, from December 9–15, 2020, in Depok and South Tangerang cities. All of 463 respondents participated in this study with online self-administered questionnaire. Chi-squared test with CI 95% has been used to determine the item which is related to support voters and personnel in implementing the health protocols. RESULTS: The results of this study indicated the significant relationship between voter status and mask wearing (p = 0.017), physical distancing (p = 0.011), and hand washing (p = 0.036). The COVID-19 daily cases before and after the local election tend to fluctuate but there was an increase from November to December 2020. There was a significant difference of the COVID-19 daily cases before and after local elections in cities in Indonesia. CONCLUSION: The availability of facilities in polling stations and strengthening the policy will influence voters to do preventive behaviors such as mask wearing, physical distancing, and hand washing during the election. This study recommends the stakeholders to provide health protocol facilities at polling station and to create programs to increase the community compliance regarding the prevention of infectious diseases during the voting process.