Lack of Voters’ Education for AES in HK, Singapore, Means Disenfranchisement to OFWs

Lack of Voters’ Education for AES in HK, Singapore, Means Disenfranchisement to OFWs

 JANESS ANN J. ELLAO 

 Published on April 1, 2010

 Bulatlat.com

With only a couple of weeks left before the start of the automated overseas absentee voting for Filipino workers in Hongkong and Singapore, voters still have no idea how it would proceed. They were informed that they would just be oriented and assisted on the day itself.

The overseas absentee voting would be held from April 10 until May 10, 2010. It will be held in Philippine embassies worldwide to give the growing population of OFWs an opportunity to vote.

Commissioner James Jimenez of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said educating voters on the automated election system (AES) on election day itself would be enough. He added that posting a list of steps and reminders for voters would already ensure a hundred percent success rate for the elections.

“We could have decided to distribute (leaflets), but we fear that they might just throw it away,” Jimenez told Bulatlat. Aside from the posted reminders on voters’ desks, they would also be hanging two large tarpaulins containing the steps and reminders inside the room where the voting would be held. “So when they look up in every direction, they would be able to see it.”

However, when the Gabriela chapter in Hongkong conducted a voters’ education campaign, they received feedback that OFWs are anxious regarding the voting procedures. OFWs wanted to make sure that their ballots would not be spoiled.

“We hope to familiarize them to the size of the ballot and how to properly shade their candidates of choice,” Cynthia Tellez said in a statement, adding that it took a couple of tries before OFWs could sufficiently and properly shade the ovals especially for those with eyesight problems.

Tellez said their group fears that OFWs are again facing disenfranchisement, saying that there is a high possibility that OFWs who will not be reached by their voters’ education efforts would commit mistakes and have invalid ballots.

“Commissioner Armando Velasco’s overconfidence that the AES will be a simple process and will proceed without a hitch actually scares us,” Tellez said. Velasco was the Comelec representative who came early March to orient OFW leaders regarding the AES.

“The one month election period allotted for us (OFWs) translates to only four days because OFWs could only go out and vote during their day off. How can Comelec expect to educate more than 90,000 registered voters in Hongkong?” she said, adding that the Comelec is always late or worse, downright neglectful when it comes to OFWs and the OAV.

An Experiment? 

Jimenez told Bulatlat that they no longer have time to conduct voters’ education for OFWs in Singapore and Hongkong because the decision to hold automated elections for the two countries came late. “We have spare machines,” he explained when asked what pushed Comelec to hold automated elections abroad.

Of the 82,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, only 76,000 would be used for the elections in the Philippines. Jimenez said that with the 6,000 spare PCOS, Comelec thought that it is high time to introduce the new technology overseas. “To a certain extent we also want overseas voting to move forward. We want to improve the technology we use overseas,” he said, citing that the Philippines was the first country in Asia to hold voting via internet during the 2007 elections.

“This (automation) is just a continuation of the efforts of Comelec to modernize,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez said Comelec is working on a massive roll out theory, comparing the AES to Mini Stop, a 24-hour convenience store in the Philippines. The massive roll out theory as applied by the local convenience store, Jimenez said, translates into the opening of many Mini Stop stores in an area. Eventually, the store that does not gain profits is shut down.

He said the advantage of the massive roll out theory is that one is able to generate learnings in a short period of time compared to a limited roll out.

“If you expose a new technology in various places at the same time, you essentially have many small laboratories (to see the results),” Jimenez said, adding there will be an increase in “net progress.” Yet, Jimenez insisted that the automated overseas absentee voting is not an experiment.

Mission Impossible 

According to Jimenez, 20 units of PCOS machines will be sent to Hongkong and seven units for Singapore. He added that there will be back-up machines, five for Hongkong and two for Singapore. But Migrante International, the largest OFW group, said the allotted PCOS machines for both countries are not enough.
The planned automated voting will involve 95,355 registered Filipino absentee voters in Hongkong and 31,851 in Singapore, comprising 20 percent of the 589,830 total OAV voters.

“The ballot box of each PCOS machine is designed to accommodate only 1,000 ballots. In both Hongkong and Singapore, there would roughly be 5,000 voters per PCOS machine. How on earth could 5,000 overseas absentee voting ballots fit into one ballot box?” Migrante International chairperson Garry Martinez said, adding that they fear that the opening of the ballot boxes,once they become full, would be an opportunity for election cheating.

But Jimenez said that with the AES, it is impossible for cheating to happen. He said election procedures will happen so fast that before the person who intends to cheat could think of a way how, the election is already finished, he said.

To further ensure clean overseas elections, Jimenez added, the Comelec would be allowing poll watchers. However, they should be accredited by the Education and Information department of Comelec in Manila. Requests may be done via email, he said.

However, Migrante believes that with “the slack preparations and the machine glitches during the dry-runs”, chaos leading to disenfranchisement is likely to happen. He cited the major transmission glitches and other problems that occurred during the mock elections in Taguig and Quezon City.

Benefits 

Jimenez said that aside from generating the results of the elections faster, there is no clear benefit for OFWs with the introduction of the AES. But Migrante said should there be a failure of elections in Hongkong and Singapore, it is the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that would surely benefit.

Migrante noted that presidential bets Manny Villar and Eddie Villanueva are known to have strong support among OFWs in Honkong and Singapore. “It must also be stressed that progressive party-list groups such as Migrante Sectoral Party and Gabriela Women’s Party topped the party-list elections in Hongkong in 2004 and 2007.

Under the current circumstances, Migrante called upon OFWs to be vigilant because they have been robbed of their democratic rights twice – denying them of direct representation to Congress through the Migrante Sectoral Party and the lack of information regarding the AES.

(Reprinted with permission from Bulatlat.com)