As fast a that.
What did you transmit?
That described the recent presidential election in the Philippines. And it appears that only a few people protest the election results. This is different from manual voting, counting, and canvassing in the past.
People went out for various reasons. That didn’t exclude the people’s curiosity of what they call “Pcos” machines. Every one seemed to be excited about the new technology and they wanted to try it. Is it one of the reasons why people stayed in long lines and endure the heat of the sun?
Probably one reason.
While there are only a few people who try to protest about the new technology-based election system, it doesn’t mean that they are wrong. Personally, I think they do have a point.
We have been overwhelmed by the speed and somehow disregarded any possibility of fraud. Everything else became instant—instant voting, instant conceding, instant proclamation. It’s just too fast.
The truth is people were caught in astonishment. Wow! That’s the effect. After voting, no one seems to wonder if what the machine read was really “their vote.” Because even if they got a receipt confirming who they voted for, there’s still a possibility of transmitting a different number.
I’m not a naysayer. Almost all my life, I’ve been a fan of positivism. And I think that serves as an energizer in any given instance. But I’m a bit concerned of what really happened “in the airwaves” or with Pcos for that matter.
This isn’t to say that there was an irregularity. I don’t judge the credibility of the process. I only ask question that I think is valid and worth looking at.
Of course I can only assume that somewhere in the process may be wrong. I’ve followed the campaign trail of some local politicians, some of them are my clients, and believe me when I say that there were some “unbelievable” results like having a winning candidate who didn’t campaign hard and without much support from community leaders.
One of my clients said that she was given an offer. She denied it although she still won.
A good friend of mine, who is also a political analyst from the University of the Philippines said, “We rushed being automated.” At some point, I agree. We really did become so excited that we failed to even be transparent about the process.
Nobody knows what really happened in between the Pcos machine and the server or the voter and Pcos machine. No one will know now.
But there’s always two sides. And in technological process such as this, I hope and pray that our leaders don’t make mockery out of the people’s trust of the system. As a people, I think we already fell in love with Pcos.
In the coming elections though, I hope to have a really clean rank of election leaders and officers to ensure that the technology isn’t used for personal interest of the few who take advantage of the “blind” citizenry simply because no one would know what is transmitted from here to there.
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