ABSTRACT
PollWatch is in many ways driven and defined by the law, and one regional leader described PollWatch's role as similar to that of an election referee. To understand PollWatch's monitoring activities, it is important to understand the election law, specifically the sections that deal with the most common types of election fraud that PollWatch encounters: corrupt candidates and biased government officials. One aspect of PollWatch's mission is election monitoring, which is divided into two areas of work, namely: violation complaints, and monitoring the poll station. PollWatch received complaints through letters, telephone, fax and people coming directly to volunteers. Each district PollWatch office formed special units which included four Border Patrol Police (BPP) officers, one or two PollWatch volunteers and one local police officer. Because of the short time period for organisation, many of the PollWatch activities were decentralized to the provincial and district levels. The colonel took PollWatch activities seriously, and sent reports to Ban Manangkasila on a daily basis.
