Abstract:
Baamang sub-district community is very diverse with a very multiethnic professional background, education, religion, culture and ethnicity. The dynamics of the community need to be reviewed further in relation to the implementation of elections, especially regarding political participation and voter behavior. There are at least seven domains of voters in determining the basis of their political choices, namely, political issues and policies, social image, emotional feelings, candidate image, current events, personal events and epistemic factors. This study aims to determine voter behavior and what factors influence voter behavior in public elections in the Mentaya river basin in the 2014 legislative elections in Baamang sub-district, Kotawaringin Timur, Kalimantan Tengah. The research approach uses qualitative research because the research problems studied are holistic, complex, dynamic and full of meaning. The research method is field research which is a type of research oriented to empirical data collection in the field. The data collection technique in this study was carried out by interview, some notes that became field findings and available documentation related to this study. Data analysis is done by using several main steps, namely reducing data and presenting process data processing data that has been reduced in the form of a brief description describing the findings of the study. The results of the research on voter behavior in the watershed indicate that there are several factors that influence voter behavior namely similarity in identity background, education of candidates, experience of legislative candidates, economy, candidates vision and mission programs, disappointment with the performance of previous legislators and the popularity and appearance of candidates. Whereas voter behavior can be categorized into three namely rational-critical, traditional-skeptical and pragmatic-emotional.
Keywords: rational-critical voters, traditional-skeptical voters, pragmatic voters
