E-voting for 2010 to be announced

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is expected to announce the type of electronic voting to be used for the 2010 general elections at the end of the month, following the recommendation of the Advisory Council on Poll Automation.

“The Council had asked to be given until the end of the month to study this matter. We’re waiting for their recommendations,” Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said.

The Comelec advisory council is studying the use of direct recording electronics (DRE) and optical mark reader (OMR), which were both utilized in the recent elections at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Melo, however, said their initial meetings with the Council revealed the DRE technology is impractical in remote or sparsely populated areas.

He said the Council is now studying the use of OMR in remote voting areas.

The DRE technology is fully automated from voting to counting to canvassing. In the OMR method, voters choose their candidates by manually shading the blank oval shapes beside the names of their candidates. The votes are counted and canvassed by the machines.

The Comelec tested these machines during the ARMM elections and were satisfied with the results.

In areas where DRE was used, the results came out within 48 hours while for OMR, winners were declared within a week.

Melo noted that full use of DRE is “not cost effective” in far-flung areas, where the Comelec might use the OMR instead.

The Comelec is proposing a budget of P21 billion for the automation of the 2010 polls.

“We’ll see what’s best for us in 2010. We are studying this carefully,” he said.     – Sheila Crisostomo