Next up for the Philippines: automated grassroots polls

 

Photo courtesy of ABS-CBN News

 

Since 2010, the Commission of Elections (Comelec) has successfully used electronic counting for national and local elections in the Philippines. This time, the poll body has set its sights on bringing the benefits of automation down to elections at the grassroots.

The hyperlocal polls, which go by the official name of Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE), is set for October 30 of this year. Under the law, the BSKE is to be held every three years to choose grassroots leaders in 42,027 villages (barangays) across the country. Currently, the BSKE is still conducted manually and is plagued by problems of slow count, human error, and fraud.

The BSKE modernization initiative kicked off recently with mock elections in three pilot areas in and around the capital city of Manila. The successful exercise saw the return to active service of the familiar vote counting machines (VCMs), following a massive nationwide deployment in the 2022 general elections.

During the mock elections, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia noted how automating the BSKE would speed up the process and make results available an hour after the polls close. Manual count is known to take days or even weeks to finish.

E-voting is also expected to reduce the risk of fraud and errors hounding BSKE. While manual elections are vulnerable to vote padding miscounting of votes and other anomalies, automated elections are more secure and reliable, as the votes are cast and counted electronically.

In addition, automated elections prove to be cost-effective in the long run, as they require fewer personnel and resources. The savings brought on by automation should be a welcome development for the national government.

Moreover, the automation of the grassroots polls is seen to immensely benefit electoral board members. While manual elections can be a long and tiring process for poll workers, who often must work for up to 24 hours straight, automated elections are much less demanding on election workers, as they only must operate the voting machines and do not have to manually count the votes.

The citizen watchdog Namfrel (National Movement for Free Elections), which was present as an observer in the mock elections gave its imprimatur on the initiative saying that automating the BSKE is “doable.”

The Comelec’s initiative to automate the BSKE represents a major step forward in upgrading the transparency and efficiency of the grassroots polls in the Philippines. With the benefits of automation trickling down to the most basic unit of government, the Philippines bolsters its standing as a primary reference for election modernization.

91% of Filipinos favor automated elections in the future

A 2019 Pulse Asia survey showed that 4 of 5 Filipinos are satisfied with the conduct of the May 2019 polls. A significant majority of voters expressed "big trust" in the results, and 87 percent of respondents reported being satisfied with the use of electronic voting machines in the Philippines.

These results mimic another survey conducted in June by The Second Quarter 2019 Social Weather Survey (SWS) among 1,200 adults eligible to vote. The SWS classified the satisfaction rating of Filipinos with the 2019 elections as excellent.

While the Pulse Asia Survey was commissioned by Democracy Watch and Stratbase Albert Del Rosario Institute; the SWS initiative was non-commissioned and released as a public service.

Evaluating the voters’ satisfaction with the automation of their polls and the use of election technology (since 2010) was a critical segment of both surveys. Vote counting machines are in use across all the Philippines, where more than 92,000 electronic voting devices are deployed in nearly 37,000 polling places.

Some of the most significant findings include:

·         94% of respondents said it was easy to vote using the vote-counting machine (VCM)

·         91% said they “would like to see automated voting continue in future elections.”

·         87% said they “were satisfied with the automated polling system or counting of votes through (VCM)”

·         86% said they consider “the election results are believable.”

·         74% believe “no cheating occurred” in their areas

·         64% believe “there was no vote-buying” in their areas

Ronnie Holmes, Pulse Asia president, noted that “a large number of people in favor of continuing automated elections may be due to the ease of voting and quick release of results.

The vast majority of Filipinos voters trust the results of their country’s recent elections.”

Overcoming election irregularities

The Social Weather Survey found fewer Filipino voters saying they personally witnessed, or have knowledge about, election irregularities such as vote-buying, harassment of voters, flying voters, cheating in the counting of votes, bribing not to vote, and use of violence on election day.

According to the answers in the sample, those who personally witnessed vote-buying fell from 19% in June 2016 to 10% in 2019. At the same time, those who read or heard about it from reliable sources fell from 23% to 15%

Furthermore, the impartiality of the automated elections system has resulted in more peaceful elections in the Philippines, and the voters are more aware of these added benefits of election technology in the country.