EDITORIAL - Stuck in the Jurassic age

Just hours after the polling centers closed across the United States, Americans were flabbergasted that they still didn’t know who had won their presidential race. If not for the fluke in Florida, the results would have been known less than a day after voting ended.

In the Philippines, it would be a miracle if a trend could be established within two days after voters picked a new president. Some progress has been made in Philippine elections – vote counting has become faster at least in local polls. But the tallying for national positions has remained stuck in the Jurassic age. The entire voting system is several decades behind other countries, including some from the Third World.

The first Philippine electoral exercise in the Third Millennium was supposed to herald the modernization of the voting system, but the nation will just have to keep dreaming. Yesterday, the Commission on Elections announced that the mid-term elections in May next year will be automated – but only by about 50 percent. The reason? Out of a proposed budget of P2 billion for poll computerization, the Comelec got only P750 million, poll officials said. Bids for the automation project were opened yesterday.

The Comelec had earlier moved the election calendar, requiring the filing of certificates of candidacy next month so the poll body can have enough time to prepare for full automation. But the deadline has since been reset to January. Meanwhile, the Comelec says it has been busy cleaning up voters’ lists and preparing materials for a nationwide information campaign on the mid-term polls, including the party-list system. Precinct mapping is expected to be completed by year’s end.

All measures are being undertaken to ensure clean and orderly elections, Comelec officials said. Still, it would be disheartening to watch poll personnel again laboriously tallying votes manually on sheets of paper tacked on to blackboards in public schools. Such a system gave rise to all forms of electoral fraud including Dagdag-Bawas, which allowed officials who were never elected to occupy crucial elective posts. With only part of the electoral reforms in place, expect more problems next year.