Filipinos in Singapore to test Internet voting

SINGAPORE (AFP) – In a first for the Philippines’ cumbersome electoral process, Filipinos working in Singapore can use the Internet to vote for their candidates in May mid-term elections, the service provider said.

Spanish technology firm Scytl said on its website that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Manila has awarded the firm a contract to conduct the Philippines’ first online voting.

Filipinos in tech-savvy Singapore will be the first to try the system.

"The Comelec has awarded a contract to Scytl to carry out the first Internet election in the Philippines," the company said.

With just several clicks of the computer mouse, the estimated 27,000 Filipino voters in Singapore can cast ballots from their homes or at Internet cafes, instead of lining up at polling booths in the embassy.

Filipinos will elect members of the Senate and House of Representatives as well as provincial and town officials in the May 14 vote.

Singapore has been chosen as a test site for the electronic voting project because of its high Internet penetration rate, the newspaper said.

The plan is to expand Internet voting to other countries and cities where there are large communities of overseas Filipino workers, it added.

More than eight million Filipinos, nearly a 10th of the population, are working abroad.

Since many Filipinos in Singapore are maids, embassy officials told the newspaper they hope employers will allow domestic helpers to use their home computers in order to vote.

Under the Philippines’ manual voting process, a voter writes the name of each candidate on a paper ballot which is counted by hand.

The laborious process, in which some results can take weeks or months to be known, has given rise to opportunities for cheating and buying of votes.

Last year, Congress passed a law authorizing partial computerized elections.