DAVAO CITY ? Traveling around the country to explain poll automation are finding the youth increasingly taking the lead in efforts to bring about change in the 2010 elections.

While many are still cynical over whether the elections would be clean or even honest, the youth are taking their chances and hoping.

Take the case of Edlyn Oliverio, 19, and Diana Rose Bongcaras, 21.

Oliverio, 19, a marketing sophomore at the Ateneo de Davao University, shakes her head when asked if she thought the 2010 elections would be fraud-free as a result of automation.

?If they want to cheat, it would be easy for them to find ways, even though voting is already automated,? said Oliverio, who came with her classmates to a voters? education forum at the Ateneo de Davao auditorium on Saturday.

Bongcaras, 21, a Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) official in Barangay (village) Buhangin, Davao City, said poll automation was no guarantee for clean elections.

?In the first place, how can we be assured that the operator of the voting machine is trustworthy? And even the BEIs [board of election inspectors], some of them have been involved in cheating in the past,? said Bongcaras.

Youth power

The forum was organized by Bantay Eleksyon (BE) 2010 with Youth Vote Philippines and First Time Voters Inc. to inform the youth on poll automation and encourage non-partisan participation in clean and honest elections.

Bantay Eleksyon 2010 is composed of institutions and organizations for electoral reforms.

More than 200 students and SK youth leaders came to the forum to listen to lawyer Marlon Quesquero, Commission on Elections regional assistant director, explain poll automation.

Pia Zamora, project coordinator of Tacdrup [technical assistance center for the development of rural and urban poor], one of BE?s local partners, said the forum was the second in a school in the city.

She said at least 20 forums were held in major Mindanao cities ?with varied audiences ?from simple farmers to teachers and young professionals.?

Zamora said there was excitement about poll automation. ?That is understandable because this is a new animal. Another frequently asked question is how politicians could cheat with this technology,? she said.

Youth vigilance

Oliverio and Bongcaras agree that vigilance is still the best protection for voters.

?I encourage my fellow youth to be vigilant and make sure politicians will not be able to cheat,? said Oliverio.

Youth Vote Philippines, a coalition of difference youth groups, said the youth would be a powerful force in the coming elections.

?Almost 54 percent of the total voting population are youth. Of the 2.6 million new voters, 80 percent are youth. So that will give you an idea how important youth participation is,? said Amore Rafanan, regional Youth Vote Philippines coordinator.

?We?re still going around asking our fellow youth to register. And additionally, we convince them to be more active, to be vigilant.?

Rafanan said the youth in the countryside were instrumental in convincing villagers to register as voters.

?We tapped the students in the poblacion to help us convince their neighbors in interior villages to welcome Comelec in their area and have themselves registered,? said Rafanan.

Fed up

Rafanan said in one case, the Comelec got the help of youth volunteers to go to a remote village of the B?laan tribe and register tribe members who are kept from listing up because registration centers were just too far from where they lived.

?That is a form of vigilance. We want to replicate this in other areas,? added Rafanan.

?To be vigilant is the first instinct of voters now after all that happened in the past. They are fed up. The youth are taking the lead,? said Zamora.

She said, however, that there?s still a lot of work ahead.

?We only have two more months to convince new voters to register,? she said. Ma. Cecile Rodriguez, Inquirer Mindanao