'Automation bid inadequate to ensure credible polls'

MANILA, Philippines – The government must complement its poll-automation efforts with moves at cleaning voters’ list and changing the vote buying-and-selling culture to ensure a clean and honest 2010 elections. The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said focus must be given to the “human side" of the electoral exercise – and this includes a clean voters’ list and changed mentality that rejects vote buying and selling. "Ito kailangan ng tao pagbabago…, kailangan tutukan, marami pa rin ang vote buying, nagbebenta at bumibili. Nagkaroon ng kultura, yan ang kailangan baguhin. Yan ang bagay na di magagawa ng makina, kahit anong makina o teknolohiya (There is much room for improvement, mainly on the human aspect. There is still a culture of vote buying and selling, and we must change this culture because this is something machines cannot solve)," PPCRV chairwoman Henrietta de Villa said in an interview on dzBB radio. Otherwise, she said, the automated polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) last Aug. 11 would have been a good guide for the 2010 polls. De Villa gave the ARMM polls a high score of "8 to 9" in the scale of 10, though she said there is still much room for improvement for automated elections. She said much needs to be done in cleaning up the voters' list and in adopting the right mix of technology. Also, she said the government must find the right mix of technology for the coming elections, citing weaknesses in the two technologies used in the ARMM polls. De Villa said that while the direct recording electronic (DRE) in Maguindanao appeared faster and more accurate, it is too expensive compared to the optical mark reader (OMR). On the other hand, the OMR system is slower because of procedures that require human intervention, and may surpass the 36-hour deadline for the completion of counting. "Paniwala ko sa 2010 hindi pwedeng isang technology lang. Pag-aaralan pa rin baka may ibang technology na mas mahusay (I believe no one technology can do the job in 2010. The government should study the right mix of technology)," she said. She also said this should be complemented with a cleanup of the voters' list. She said machines cannot detect minors or multiple registrants from a corrupted voters' list. - GMANews.TV