EVER since the conclusion of the end-to-end demonstration of the Precinct Automated Tally System (PATaS) that is being proposed as an alternative to the automated-election system was implemented by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in both the 2010 and 2013 elections, all people can talk about is how slow it was.
Well, of course, it was slow. To begin with, it was a manual-counting system where the members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) needed to take the ballots out of the ballot box and arrange the ballots in bundles of 20, all before a single vote was ever read out. This precounting process alone took more than 10 minutes, at best.
A “ballot” refers to the piece of paper a voter writes his or her votes on. A “vote” refers to the indication that a specific candidate has been chosen by the voter. This can be either the name of the candidate written down in the blank space corresponding to the position, or, in the case of the automated elections of 2010 and 2013, a blacked-out oval next to the name of the candidate being selected.
After bundling the ballots, the BEIs then proceed with the counting of the votes. This is accomplished by taking a ballot and reading out the individual votes, one position and one candidate at a time.
In between sounding out each vote, the BEI member reading the ballot needs to pause and wait for the BEI member standing by the blackboard to note down the vote in the corresponding space on the tally board with a stick mark. Meanwhile, the third BEI member does the same for the election returns.
Only when all three BEI members have signified their readiness to proceed with the next vote can the whole process be started again.
Assuming an average of 36 positions being voted for, and assuming also that it takes about half a minute for each vote to be read and recorded, then it takes approximately 18 minutes for each fully accomplished ballot, as opposed to a partially accomplished ballot where the voter has abstained from voting for one or more positions, to be processed completely.
On this basis alone, anyone can immediately come to the conclusion that counting will not be a speedy affair. And that is just the garden-variety manual-counting system.
Add an “automated-tally system,” where a fourth person has to record the vote being read out, only this time on a computer attached to an LED projector, and you can see that the pace of counting really slow down to a crawl.
But what really balloons the time it takes to process each ballot is the inescapable reality of election lawyers and political watchers all eager to contest each vote.
This means that, on top of the 18 or so minutes needed to process every single ballot, you are going to have the time it takes for the lawyer or watcher to object, the time it takes for the BEIs to consult and rule on the objection, and the time it takes for everyone to settle down so that the counting can resume.
Given all that, I am really puzzled as to why the slowness of the hybrid system is even considered remarkable. What is more surprising to me, truth be told, is how some people seem to have forgotten that these time complications exist at all.
As bewildering as this collective amnesia is, however, it is still far less confusing than the statement made by former Comelec Commissioner Augusto C. Lagman that “the PCOS [Precinct Count Optical Scan] machines can be used in the regions.”
Hold the phone.
To be fair, Lagman prefaced this statement by saying that he knew people would be hesitant to adopt the hybrid system, if it meant completely abandoning the 82,000 PCOS machines which were procured by the Comelec at no small cost.
Lagman’s prescription was to repair and maintain the PCOS, and then send them into action “in the regions.”
Which must really drive any thinking person to ask: If the PCOS, machines are acceptable, after all, then why is he pushing for a solution that would lead to the junking of the machines?
Let us face it. The excuse that he proposed reusing the PCOS machines simply to avoid having them go entirely to waste is lame, since the PCOS machines going to waste is not some newly stumbled-upon insight. It is, in fact, an inescapable consequence of scrapping them for the 2016 elections.
And, besides, was not the hybrid system conceptualized precisely as a rejection of the PCOS machines’ alleged opacity?
By proposing that the PCOS machines can be used, after all, Lagman negates the idea of the unacceptability of a system he has, time and again, branded as opaque. The former Comelec commissioner has, in other words, shot his own advocacy in the foot, or some other, more vital, body part.
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James Arthur B. Jimenez is director of the Commission on Elections’s education and information department.