Filipinos to miss thrill of manual vote count

LUCENA CITY—Now that manual elections look to be a thing of the past, people can afford to wax nostalgic over the much-derided slow and lengthy method of casting and counting the votes.

House Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said that with another automated election come Monday, Filipinos will again be deprived of the thrill and excitement of watching their votes being tallied manually.

“For several generations, especially among Filipinos in the rural areas, the manual counting of votes was the most thrilling part of the election process,” Suarez said.

The Quezon representative recalled how voters, particularly in the barrios, eagerly wait for the voting to end in their precincts to watch the manual tabulation.

‘Kahon’ system

He described the thrill that voters got from hearing the name of their candidates being read out by the poll chair from the stack of cast ballots, and their excitement each time they heard the shout of “kahon” (box) by the poll officials and saw the long sheets of paper of the tallied votes for their candidates.

In the manual system, the precinct official in charge listed the votes on a piece of Manila paper and tacked it on to a blackboard. He or she would then shout “kahon” to convey to another poll official in charge of tabulating the votes in the official election form that a candidate had earned another set of five votes.

For tallying purposes, the “kahon” shouting system was meant to compare the records of the two poll officials listing and tabulating the votes.

A veteran poll watcher said that his assigned task in this election has been made easier by automated elections.

Ramon Prado said that unlike before when the watchers had to be eagle-eyed during the manual reading and counting of votes, they can now afford to relax because the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine is the one reading and tallying the votes.

“No more long hours of waiting and watching,” said Prado, who was a poll watcher in past manual elections.

He said that with the PCOS machine, watchers can even afford to exchange jokes with their counterparts from the opposing camp.

Cash bets

Pedro Bautista, 65, an ambulant market vendor, recalled how he used to wait for hours until the manual counting of votes in his poll precinct was completed.

“It was fun waging a friendly cash bet for my candidate. That’s why I liked to personally monitor the counting to know if I was losing or winning,” he said.

But when the first computerized elections were held, Bautista said he just stayed home after casting his vote.

“I also stopped placing bets. There’s no more thrill,” he said with a laugh.

The first fully automated election in the country was held in 2010.

Suarez, who had proposed a system that would combine automated voting with manual counting, is now resigned to a fully automated election system.

“It’s now water under the bridge,” he said, adding that he recognized the election law that says voting and counting must be both automated with the use of the PCOS machine.

Despite criticisms and mounting fears that the PCOS machines will not ensure credible election results, Suarez expressed confidence the poll equipment would perform the task.

He said that from initial information that he has received, the results of the final testing and sealing of the PCOS machines in different precincts in his province showed no major glitches.