EL FASHIONISTAZ: New Year, new Way of Voting

New Year, New Way of Voting

We are 16 weeks away before the national elections. Others mark their calendars day-by-day in preparation for new level of elections. Smartmatic recently won the bidding as a supplier of the automated election machines that will be used in the electoral processes.

Despite of delays in voter’s education, Commission on Elections (ComElec) still pursuing the automation. May 10 is fast approaching; the Comelec is not beating the deadlines onb educating all the registered voters about the newly introduced voting machines. The commission is currently distributing the machines to 80,136 designated voting precincts in the whole country. We are already in January, the elections is on May, there are so many questions gambling in our mind as one of the voters.

Do we have enough time to be well-trained in using these voting machines? Do Smartmatic could supply the needed 80,000+ voting machines? Is it easy to use even by the illiterate? Is it prone to cheating? Do technicians have the knowledge in coming up in all possible situations?

Since last year, the commission is distributing officials that would educate us about the automated elections.

The voting machine is called Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS). It will be placed on the top of the ballot boxes. It appears like a fax machine and shaped like a typewriter when covered. It applies simple mechanics but then people have different intellectual knowledge. It is possible that some of us will have a hard time catching it up.

To vote, one still has to fill out the ballot. The ballot is designed according to specific precinct. The name of the candidates is listed on the ballot. It is printed on paper with machine readable signature. The machine will never accept any other paper. Beside the name of the candidates from the presidentiables to local officials have a circle that will be shaded by the voters of their choice. The voters will shade depending in the needed slots for particular contest.

If the voter did not shade it properly or he just put a cross inside the circle, the machine will not count the vote of the candidate. If the voter leaves a blank in any position, it would be counted by the machine. If the voter over vote in a particular position, example he voted two for the mayor or he elected 14 in the senators, the PCOS will not count the excess.

After filling out the ballots, the voter has to feed it into the PCOS. At the right side of the machine, there is an indicator that will show if the ballot if accepted or rejected. If it is rejected, the voter has to repeat the process of feeding the ballot to the machine. The number counter increases one every time the machine accepts the ballot. The accepted ballot goes into the box below the machine.

Technology is applied in this automation but yet we hope that there should be no possible way of cheating.