A voter needs almost 8 minutes to fill up the ballot to be used in the country’s first automated elections in May 2010, initial results of a time-and-motion study conducted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and other groups revealed Friday.
Students of the First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities in Tanauan, Batangas on Friday participated in a mock poll in their school to test the electronic ballots to be used in the actual 2010 elections. A total of 1,000 2nd year to 4th year college students, all of voting age, used improvised ballots which had the names of 339 possible candidates for 32 electoral positions in the 2010 elections.
The mock poll is a joint project of Youth Vote Philippine, Former Senior Government Officials, Comelec and Politicalarena.com.
Organizers said the time-and-motion study is meant to determine how long it would take a person to fill up the ballot. This, in turn, would help Comelec determine if 11 hours is enough for an estimated 1,000 voters per clustered precinct to cast their ballots on election day.
“We will find out the actual average of all the voting times. This will help us determine if 11 hours is enough time for all voters in each clustered precinct to cast their ballots,” Mildred Ople of Youth Vote Philippines said.
A TV Patrol World report said each student averaged about 7 minutes and 51 seconds or almost eight minutes to fill up the ballot, according to initial results of the time-and-motion study. One first-time voter said he was thrilled to use the new ballots, which only required voters to shade a circle beside the name of the candidate of their choice.
“I now have a glance or preview on how to vote in the elections,” he said.
Organizers said the results showed that voting stations should allow at least 12 voters to fill up their ballots simultaneously to allow all 1,000 voters in each clustered precinct to cast their ballots before precincts close.
A brownout was also simulated during the mock poll to show if it would affect the process. During the actual election day, technology consortium Smartmatic-TIM is expected to provide generators to provide backup power.
The Comelec is expected to conduct a mock election using the Smartmatic-TIM machines on the second week of December.
Several groups earlier criticized Comelec for not conducting proper time-and-motion studies before approving the poll automation contract with Smartmatic-TIM
…greetings…
i’ll just ask if how sure the filipinos will know how to fill up this newly set up of voting. how will the comelec inform, teach and assess the illiterate ones especially those people who are in the far sections of the phils?. will the government make it on time to teach and assess all those people. will there be any assurance that this type of election will emerge successfully?. i am just concerned for my country that’s why i wrote this thing. i don’t want to see my country and fellow countrymen to suffer again and again because of corruption, dishonesty and selfishness which results to extreme poverty because of some soulless people who doesn’t care for the goodness of all. that’s all.
.no hard feelings. just expressing my feeling and thoughts.
c^^,
Happy New Year!
Why don’t the Comelec publish a picture of a sample ballot so that voters can see how the ballot looks like.
Automation provides efficient way for voting with less hassle. Voters cannot prolong the process of voting and lined up in a crowd and counting of votes will be quicker.But is that machine hackable or fully secured?…because there are possibilities that the candidates can hire a computer experts to hack the system and manipulate the entire votes.Still,we should be watchful!