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For assignment 3 in MIS, we are tasked to make a blog entry on our own thoughts regarding the 2010 Automated Election.

There are issues that need to be entertained nowadays especially that these issues greatly affect our daily living, indeed we are socially and politically affected with the current issues we are facing. There is a great necessity in keeping ourselves abreast and vigilant for we can be engulfed by these issues and eventually will ruin the future of our country. Responding to the current issue in our environment is one way of giving or lending an aide to the government as to their performance. Whether they are on the right side they don’t know, only its subordinates, the people, who knows what a good government is.

The issue is on the AUTOMATED ELECTION, which is primarily proposed by the COMMISSION ON ELECTION. There are people who are in favor with this proposal however there is also countless number of people who are against to this proponent and continue to address their will and their thoughts . This issue has brought into debates, series of arguments and even disagreements between parties involved in the issue.

As for my own opinion, before a decision turned into a verdict let us first consider things in a more specific way. Let’s not limit our thinking with the things that makes us going. Technology has great participation on the breakthrough of the plan for automated election. This thing must be taken into account, considering its advantages. Technology has been a part of our daily living, and basically we already know how the impact relates to the basic needs of the people.

Automated Election…My thoughts…my views…

“The Comelec claims that we will finally have clean and honest elections because the 2010 elections will be fully automated.”

Quite late, the Philippines finally had its taste on making the 2010 election fully automated, after earned a lot of speculations and issues on the older way of poll system which brought to war between opponents because of the issue on cheating fraud. That is what the COMELEC is currently pursuing, to make the 2010 POLL fully automated.

Will this plan prosper?

I stand for Automated Election.

Why go for automated election??

There is no other way of having a quick and reliable elections than having it fully automated. Though it requires big budgetary requirements but the benefits of it are essential to the government. The Automated Election System (AES) uses appropriate technology which has been demonstrated in the voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, and transmission of election results, and other electoral process. Since the system makes use of ballots, and also considering the fact that it is already familiar to most members of the electorate, this system was recommended as the most suitable for the Philippine setting. With the use of centralized counting centers, a ballot counter could be assigned to count the ballots from several precincts, or even from a whole municipality, depending on the number of registered voters. In an automated system, counting will no longer be done by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI). In an OMR system, the paper ballots will be brought to a central counting center where they will be fed into a counting machine and print out election returns. In a DRE system, the voting machines will count the votes stored in its internal memory and print out election returns. See? how effecient is the proposal of the automation, everyone is relatind to it and having their good comments regarding the auotmation process. However, I have my own sentiments regarding the late response of the authorities regarding the older system of elections.

For me, it is a late response in the side of the COMELEC to realize the current demand of the public which is to provide structured and peaceful elections. The country has been addressing the thousands of problems regarding the WHOLE electoral process of the country.

The addressed problem regarding the Manual system of election highlighted the disadvantages of a manual system of election; from the process of casting of votes to canvassing of the results of the elections. The nation braced itself as it witnessed one of the slowest canvassing of the results made in May 2004 elections. It was readily apparent that the nation would stand to benefit from an Automated Election System. Sectors considered this system of election an end to end solution with the ordinary way of election system, however some body find it as cheating paraphernalia. Whatever it is, as far as I know the proposal seeks to provide the flexibility on execution of the automated election system, as it consider the budgetary requirements, manpower requirements, peace and order situation and other concerns. The end desired of the proposal is to assure the credibility and transparency of the whole electoral activities of the country.

Many people said that transparency in the automated election was gone; for as people feed the machine with their votes it automatically secure a printed election return without knowing that it is properly counted by the machine. Unlike with the older system, the transparency was there; public reading of votes in front of watchers and citizens, tallying and manual preparation of election returns was that it was visible. However, as claimed by the COMELEC that the machine will be opened for source codes inspection, for the people to understand that the machine is not capable for any cheating fraud. When we say fraud it includes crime, civil law violation or deceptive conduct designed to manipulate another person to give something of value. Therefore that it has been assured that it will not cause any discrepancies in the future.

Issues came out lately, that SMARTMATIC withdrawn in partnership with TIM or Total Information and Management Incorporation. According to Commission on Elections there were just differences between the two companies that need to be settled. Recently, it seems that Total Information Management (TIM) and foreign company SMARTMATIC have settled their differences and will proceed to the planned 2010 automated election. As of the moment, facilities are already realized and introduced to the public. Therefore, the plan for making the 2010 poll fully automated is now final.

The explanatory note made by Senator Gordon should be taken into account, that the country should now adapt the modernization of the whole electoral activities of the country by way of making the election automated.

Things are on its right track. Peace, sanctity, and orderliness are the primary objective way of reforming the Philippines’ older system. This impact relate to the current demand of the country making the nation at its stable economic status which starts from a holistic 2010 elections. The long wait of reform is over for the Filipinos, but still the success depend on the people; whether it will prosper or not we really don’t know, for as long as the people will stick to its desire for a brighter future all things will just come on its way.

sources:

http://www.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/30942287!.pdf
http://business.inquirer.net/money/columns/view/20090706-214009/Automated-election-fraud
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:kXM5WcKM_1kJ:www.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/25771950!.pdf+definition+of+automated+election&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph
http://themindanaocurrent.blogspot.com/2008/08/automated-election-system.html