Filipino voters are definitely in for a major change in the 2010 presidential elections which will be held on May 10. Many people believes that automated election meant that the Philippines is finally ushering in to a new and more advance technological changes in this year’s electoral system ditching the old ways of ballot boxes and hopefully saying goodbye too to blatant cheatings better known locally as “dagdag-bawas”. The question though is: are the majority of Filipino voters ready for this automated election machine? How does it work anyway? Is it possible to be learned by everyone in such a short time? What makes it easier and less prone to fraud and cheatings than the previous voting system the country has? There are so many questions, and even controversies, thrown with these automated machines that everybody, even experts, can’t help but doubt its capabilities. But surely, information can be a very powerful tool and that’s how these automated election machines will serve its purpose and become significant to everyone concern. By way of informing, educating and leading every voters on how these things work.
The actual machine to be used in election, where voters will feed their ballots that contain their candidates of choice, is called the Precinct Count Optical Scan or PCOS for short. After casting their votes, voters will feed their ballots into the machine and will make a mini conversation with the voter confirming that they have cast their ballot. Pretty easy right? Even the non-techies would agree. In case of confusion, there are always people who will assist a voter into feeding their ballot in the machine. The computerization of the 2010 Philippine election is a conscious effort on the government and election commissions to reduce the common frauds and manipulations that occur during elections.
An automated election will reduce the risk of changing ballots when vote counting comes because the PCOS machine will do the counting itself. It will also reduce if not eliminate all the number of flying voters in various voting precincts across the country. The machine will only accept the total number of voters in one voting precinct, say there are only 200 voters listed in Room 1 of Imaginary Elementary School, the PCOS machine will not accept any ballots after the 200th ballot has been fed to it. It will also not accept ballots with excess votes on it. Each voter must keep in their mind to vote only for the appropriate number of candidates. Shading two candidates for a presidential position for example will not be counted by the machine and will be considered as null. So everyone is encouraged to bring their own copies of candidate sheet to ensure that they will not over-vote nor forget their choices. It will surely come in handy come election day and it will help a lot to make your stay in the precinct a short one too since necessary preparations has been done prior to the actual date.
The country’s future is at the hands of its voters so make sure not to forget to exercise that voting rights. Let’s see how this country and its people will fare in its first ever automated machine presidential election. A machine can only do some work but the biggest and most important responsibility still rests in the voters’ hands.