It's about six more days before the national elections. It will also be the first time we're using machines instead of papers we used for so many years now. It means, good bye manual canvassing, hello automation. This method was pushed to lessen election fraud and to see who this country really voted for in less than a month. Unlike the manual canvassing, there will no longer be Manila paper, ballot boxes travelling from one place to another. Instead, it will depend on network signals or internet to send the results.
It took Comelec months to prepare the entire country for this new method. There was even this effective (but really stupid) song made by an all- girl dance group on what to do come election day. There are even infomercials starring an old lady showing what people must do, from shading to processing--- goes to show even senior citizens can do it. They say it's a pretty easy process, so there's no need to be bothered. We're in "safe hands."
But what's mind boggling is after so many months of preparation, it seems that the major problems suddenly come out days before the election. Not being pessimistic, but really, six days before the actual date of casting of the votes is getting every one a bit paranoid now, especially we're all doing this for the first time. Suddenly, machines go berserk with sample voting. According to Ricky Carandang's blog post, the testing was unutterably a failure with fiasco happening in different parts of the country. What's scarier is even the people who are supposed to be knowledgeable in operating this machine, don't even know how to press the right buttons to actually make this thing work.
Now tell us how it's going to be alright come May 10. That everything is going to be smooth sailing and we'll have an orderly election and that these mishaps are not just reasons for another messy election. We've done our job, falling in line whole day to register, researching for the right candidate to vote and by then, wake up hoping we'd make the right choice. Please, we know you do your job well, but make it ten times better than what you are doing now. We're a bit scared, really.
Here's to hoping we get what we all want.
Vote wisely.
Posts
0 comments