By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
May 11, 2010

All doomsday scenarios predicted to take place last May 10, 2010 in the Philippines turned out to be just wild imaginations, as the country’s citizens successfully carved yesterday their first national automated elections in history.

Both the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Commission on ICT (CICT) described yesterday’s poll automation as “successful,” claiming about 70 to 75% turnout of the 50.8 million registered voters in the Philippines. CICT is Comelec’s advisor for the automated election project.

“Given all the criticism and fear mongering, this (75% turnout) was a very good result,” said Ray Anthony Roxas Chua, chairman of CICT.

Over a radio interview several hours after the elections, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said that controversy may have attracted the public to vote using the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines manufactured by Smartmatic Corporation, Comelec’s technology supplier.

“I think many voted also because of curiosity, and all the noise and negatives issues that this project has brought,” Jimenez said, adding the turnout was better than the 80% turnout of 40 million registered voters in past national elections.

“Good elections are not impossible!” Jimenez posted earlier on his Facebook account. He has been opposing poll automation doomsayers since day one.

Jimenez, who announced in the past that election results will be known after 48 hours, announced awhile ago that results will be known in about 36 hours. Many considered this as a remarkable improvement compared to past manual elections where it took several months to know the voting results.

As of writing, four out of nine presidential candidates already conceded, and they are: Sen. Manny Villar (Nacionalista Party), JC de los Reyes (Ang Kapatiran), Gilberto Teodoro (Lakas-Kampi-CMD), and Sen. Richard Gordon (Bagumbayan), who authored the poll automation law.

“Today, we have a victory for democracy with the successful exercise of our first nationwide automated elections despite naysayers and doubters,” Gordon said in a statement after conceding to Sen. Noynoy Aquino of the Liberal Party who continues to lead in the official Comelec tally.

According to Jimenez, the conceding of candidates “gives credence to the Comelec automated count.”

Although there were several reports of election-related violence, vote buying and PCOS machine glitches, Comelec said the election was generally well and peaceful.

Among the main complaints by voters was the long verification queues in clustered polling precincts. Many lined up for hours, enduring the summer heat. In fact, hundreds of voters were reported to have suffered high blood pressures, headaches and heat strokes. There were even reports that many went home as they can no longer bear the overcrowding and waiting.

Critics said Comelec may have improved in the counting of votes and transmission of results but failed in making it easy and convenient for people to vote.

Reports said around 10 people were killed and several others injured in separate incidents in which some are believed to be election-related. A total of eight explosions were also recorded.

Smartmatic recently told Computerworld Philippines in an interview that terrorism, intimidation, coercion, and vote-buying are problems that are endemic in any elections, but unfortunately cannot be addressed by technology alone.

The so-called doomsayers recently warned that the country could suffer a political crisis due to failure of elections caused by malfunctioning voting machines and inaccurate and manipulated election results.

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