The blindside of automating the 2010 Philippine elections

(The author was the executive director of the Philippines’ National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, Namfrel, from 1996 to 2003 and was involved in efforts to modernize Philippine elections since 1994. He has organized or assisted in setting up Namfrel-like organizations in many other countries and has observed many elections worldwide.)

 

The blindside of automating the 2010 Philippine elections
by Telibert C. Laoc

What concerns me most is that voters might commit a high number of mistakes in filling up the ballot and a good number of votes would not be counted. If voter error is too high, it could negate the benefits of automating the count.

In the 2004 presidential elections, 36.6 million voters came out to vote or 84 percent of 43.5 million registered1. However, there were only 32.2 million votes cast for all the five candidates for president, or 88 percent. There is no accounting by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) of the 4.3 million vote difference, or 12 percent (36.6 million less 32.3 million).

There are a number of explanations to this. Not all voters really vote for a president. Some votes could have been invalidated because a name of a non-candidate was written on the ballot. The handwritten name of the candidate was illegible or entire ballots could have been invalidated due to the presence of markings or what is referred to as a “marked ballot”. It is also possible that for some reason the votes cast for president were omitted and were not read at all.

 
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