By YVONNE T. CHUA
AN election expert has expressed concern that a big number of the 50 million voters in next year’s first-ever automated national elections might make mistakes when filling up the ballot, resulting in their votes going uncounted.
“If voter error is too high, it could negate the benefits of automating the count,” said Telibert Laoc, former executive director of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), in his blog.
Laoc, who has helped set up Namfrel-like organizations in other countries and observed many elections worldwide, said voters commit mistakes even with simple ballot designs and voting processes.
In next year’s automated elections, voters will for the first time shade or blacken ovals beside the pre-printed names of their preferred candidates in the machine-readable ballot instead of writing their choices on blank lines. Each side of the new ballot, between 13 and 17 inches long, would contain the names of the candidates.
“There is an inherent degree of difficulty in accomplishing this type of ballot,” Laoc said. “The longer the ballot paper the more difficult it would be for the voter to follow the list of candidates and track how many ovals have s/he shaded.”
The former Namfrel executive director also said voters need to keep track of the number of candidates they have voted for to guard against an “overvote,” or when the votes cast exceed the number of candidates allowed for a position. An overvote would invalidate the vote for a particular position.
Laoc said uncounted votes become highly material in a hotly contested race.
“The Comelec (Commission on Elections) would have to account, as it conducts a progressive tally, how many of the votes were not counted and under what specific conditions were they not counted,” he said. This type of report is called an “exception report.”
Laoc said it is important for the Comelec to do an exception report for all positions, from presidential to local.