Various doomsday predictions were quickly proven wrong at the close of the elections on
May 10, 2010 when results started pouring into COMELEC and PPRCV servers. The swift
counting due to the implementation of the PCOS machines and other technologies employed
by COMELEC and Smartmatic gave no time at all for dagdag-bawas operations which would
have been quite easy to do in the previous elections.
The random manual audit (RMA) also has shown no significant variations from the PCOS
counts. Only one more unofficial check remains: To review if the precincts included in
the RMA are not significantly different compared to those not audited. So far though, the
election results are looking credible and the PCOS machines proved to be accurate in the
counting.
The country was given positive feedback by foreign observers and the US and UK
congratulated us for the successful elections.
However, even with the successful automation of the ballot counting, the clustered precincts
suffered long lines and delays because the queue of voters was not managed well. Each set
of BEIs had different methods of managing the queue. The fastest moving queues where
those given priority numbers from 1 to about 1000. The slowest were those processed in
batch of 10s or 20s. The queue management was dismal in most precincts. We hope that in the next election, priority numbers should be part of the election materials
to be distributed by COMELEC. This is a low tech solution for a low tech problem. Also, a
holding room beside the precinct would be good also because it allows the voters who are
about to enter the precincts to relax and prepare themselves to vote. Priority numbers
would help avoid the long lines because it allows some voters to decide whether to go home
and come back later or stay on.
The election results were also published online on www.ibanangayon.ph and allowed
anybody with Internet access to review the results. Such transparency was made possible
by the technologies employed by Smartmatic and this should be a lesson for government
agencies and LGUs: transparency really removes concerns of cheating and corruption and
gives credibility to government activities like elections, purchases and others.