Honest Voting

The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will be holding the first first fully automated elections to be held in the Philippines on Monday, August 11th.

Kristine L. Alave writes in the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) hopes this regional trial will pave the way to electronic elections throughout the entire Philippines by 2010. Jose Melo, head of the Comelec and retired justice of the Supreme Court, said that a fully automated national election is a “dream long cherished by the Comelec,” adding that “if we fail here, we will have difficulty in 2010.”

There’s a possibility the elections will be postponed by Congress, but the government hopes to go ahead with the elections because of a request from the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, with which the government is in peace negotiations. Melo expects the elections to take place as scheduled. Even if the official election is postponed, a “test” election will take place to try out the electronic voting equipment.

The ARMM elections will use two types of technologies. In Maguindanao province, the Comelec will use Direct Recording Electric touch-screen technology, in which voters will touch their chosen candidate’s picture on a small monitor. The system immediately records the information.

In the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Shariff Kabunsuan and Lanao del Sur, voters will use special ballots that will be fed into a system called optical mark reader. The special ballots are now being printed, Melo said.

The two private companies that will provide the automated voting and counting services, Avante International Technology and Smartmatic-Sahi, will test the machines onsite in the next few days, Melo said.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS