By Nash B. Maulana
Maguindanao--Voters in Maguindanao, the province with the fourth largest number of voters in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), described the automated process in the regional elections as something as easy as placing a bet in video machines, an illegal but popular form of gambling.
This was a stark contrast to voter awareness of the technology in other provinces in the region, where election watchdogs reported Sunday that voters didn’t know how to cast their votes using computers. Some of them didn’t even know the elections would be today.
House Deputy Speaker Simeon Datumanong, who cast his vote at the Shariff Ampatuan Elementary School ’s Precinct 000-1-A at about 9:00 a.m., said he was through casting his vote in one and a half minutes.
Other political leaders, including re-electionist regional governor Zaldy Ampatuan, did it in less than five minutes. Maguindanao Board Member Hadji Sukarno Sing said he was through voting in about 20 seconds.
It was the sixth regional elections, but only the third to be automated. The conduct of the polls in the region is being monitored by policy makers and electoral reform advocates, as it is the pilot test for the system that would be adopted for the 2010 presidential elections.
Different systems were used in the six provinces of the region. Direct recording electronic (DRE) system was used in Maguindanao, while the optical media reader (OMR) technology was used elsewhere.
The DRE system requires voters to just touch the part of the computer screen where the name or image of their preferred candidates, and their vote is recorded. Vince Dizon, spokesperson for DRE supplier Smartmatic-Sahi, said DRE is basically the same as the syetem used in the United States.
Ditaw Sandayan, a voter in a precinct in Datu Piang, found the electronic voting easy and likened it to placing a "[gambling] bet in a video machine."
He said he didn’t need his eyeglass, unlike when he had to write candidates’ names on the ballot, because now he only had to choose the photos of his candidates and to touch the screen where their photos appeared to vote.
Like videoke machine
Another voter, Esmael Guiapal, said that selecting a song in a videoke machine was more difficult that the touch-screen system used in the elections today.
ARMM voters had to vote today for a regional governor, a vice governor, and four assemblymen for each province.
Datumanong said that from what he saw here and in nearby towns, he would recommend for the automation of the 2010 presidential elections.
"As far as I was able to see in Shariff Aguak, particularly in my precinct, voting was very fast and very smooth," he said.
Gordon on the ground
Senator Richard Gordon, chair of the Senate committee on electoral reform who blocked the move of Malacañang and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to postpone the ARMM polls, visited precincts here and said it was interesting to see how voters were enthusiastic about the touch-screen voting.
Gordon, on the other hand, said: "What I saw was not just encouraging. There was enthusiasm among the voters in the automation of the ARMM elections. Voting was fast."
He said that "with DRE, the entire process is fast and the results come out fast, too. So the losers will feel less pain as they await the results. Kaunting aray na lang (Only a slight pain for the losers)."
The senator, however, reserved his comments on the OMR technology used in the other ARMM provinces it requires ballots to still change hands before finally dropped in boxes. He feared that this transfer of ballots could allow for "intervention" from candidates’ camps.
High turn out in Maguindanao
Fr. David Procalla, DCC, Central Mindanao coordinator for the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, said his group had recommended the DRE for Maguindanao because Maguindanao has better power and communications facilities than the other five ARMM provinces.
As of 3:30 p.m., shortly after the precincts closed, voter turnout was estimated at 70 percent in Maguindanao and 60 percent in neighboring Lanao del Sur, election officials said.
"This is an encouraging development as we welcome the coming of the country's modernization of the political exercise," Datumanong said.
Datumanong said it was very fortunate that voters here were not really distracted by the ongoing clashes between government forces and Moro guerrillas in North Cotabato.
Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, ARMM police director, said the election was generally peaceful in the region’s provinces, except for an isolated case of ballot snatching in a voting precinct in Basilan.--Newsbreak