Time constraints to force House leadership to forgo e-voting for next Congress

MANILA, Philippines - Pressed for time and faced with complications including new parliamentary rules, the House of Representatives has given up on the effort to introduce electronic voting before it adjourns in June 2010.

“The configuration has changed significantly. Before, there were only 240 congressmen, now we have about 268 House members. The report that I got is that we are already overtaken by time,” Speaker Prospero Nograles told The STAR.

He also explained that the wirings buried approximately six inches beneath the floor of the session hall “have to be redone.”

Under the planned system, voting or confirming attendance will be done by pressing a button.

“It might be difficult to implement. Maybe in the next Congress,” Nograles said.

House Majority Leader Arthur Defensor agreed, citing the glitches the system suffered when they conducted a simulated exercise, in which House employees acted as lawmakers.

“The next Congress might have to pursue it, not us, because the Biometric Electronic Voting System failed when we tested it before. I myself experienced it,” the Iloilo congressman related.