Old video of ballot boxes found in warehouse does not show 'Indonesia election fraud in 2024'

The video has been viewed more than 1.6 million times since it was posted on Instagram on December 27, 2023.

The 26-second clip features a man in a room showing piles of white boxes similar to ballot boxes used by Indonesia's General Election Commission, popularly known as the KPU (archived links here and here).

"I seek forgiveness from God. It was discovered in Makassar a plan to manipulate the 2024 elections, reads the post's caption, referring to the capital of Indonesia's South Sulawesi province (archived link). "Please check the election commission and the local election bodies in other cities." 

The video's overlaid text reads: "A man discovered ballot boxes at a place not designated by the KPU".

The man in the video can be heard saying: "I am currently at a place in Makassar. These ballot boxes are not in the district office. They were brought from polling stations straight to this place and we don't know whether it was authorised to do so.

"And these boxes, as you can see, were brought here unsealed. And it's likely there are still other places like this in Makassar. We must fight this election fraud."

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on February 1, 2024

Around 205 million eligible voters are set to cast their ballot in Indonesia's presidential and legislative elections on February 14, 2024.

Three candidates are contesting in the presidential race: Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo. The winner will succeed President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, after he completes the maximum two terms ruling Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

The video has been viewed more than 1,600 times after it was shared on Facebook, TikTok and SnackVideo.

However, the claim is false.

A keyword search on Google found the video had circulated during the previous Indonesian elections, for example this Facebook post, which was uploaded on April 18, 2019 -- one day after election day that year (archived links here and here).

"Ballot boxes were not stored at their designated place in Makassar...one by one was revealed," reads the post's caption.

As reported by local media here and here, the Makassar election commission had clarified in 2019 that it rented the building to place the ballot boxes there because their warehouses had no sufficient space (archived links here and here).

It is a common practice for an election commission to rent buildings where it can store election paraphernalia like ballot boxes (archived link).

Regarding the claim that the ballot boxes seen in the video had arrived unsealed, the body said that it was a pure "negligence" and relevant officers had been reprimanded.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the video from 2019 (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the video from 2019 (right)

The South Sulawesi chapter of the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) issued a statement in December 2023,  saying that the video was taken during the 2019 elections (archived link).

The South Sulawesi Bawaslu "confirmed that the video was from the 2019 general elections and is not relevant to the 2024 elections," the statement said. "The video had been investigated at that time and corrective actions had been taken to explain the conditions in the circulating video."

The KPU said that all election paraphernalia including ballot boxes for the 2024 elections had been distributed to all its city and district offices by January 4, 2024 (archived link).

AFP has debunked other misinformation related to Indonesia's 2024 elections here.