Filipinos experience high-tech US mock elections

Based here in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I say the hight tech election results i
s what the Philippines must have. My wife and I went into the polling place at
5:30PM and at 7:34 PM, the results for the local election was projected and the
national election results were out at almost midnight. NOT one month ----- hou
rs. No killings and no civil commotion.

I have been following/watching elections for years, here and the abroad. This
year, I've been an avid fan of Politico.com, CNN, Yahoo, RealClearPolitics and
FoxNews for some info about the US election. I've been amazed by the way the U
S handled the election, imagine the number of states they have and how soon the
election result can be made.

Our country is just comparable to one of their states yet we cannot handle the
election on time. Our government can spend the money for pork barrel or other
"government projects" prone to graft but we cannot afford to buy these computer
s??? or digitalize this small country??? I don't think we cannot afford it, th
e question maybe is, does the government have the will to do? Maybe if they're
out of reasons and are about to be out-of-office, they can do it, so their pred
ecessor can no longer do the same corrupt practices they have afforded themselv
es. But wait, this is another big amount to be spent for computerization, what
happened to the previous bidding for computerization??? Is it gone for the mome
nt or will they have to re-bid again so they can get commissions out of it.

Sometimes I could also say we (or most of today's Filipinos) are partly to be b
lamed. We are not mobilized, we are not vigilant against those corrupt practice
s or if we do, we tend to think it's the government's job to run after them but
look, they are the ones running the government. I could only hope and wish th
at we learn to speak out, have our voice heard and not just worry about the dai
ly bread, we can cope up. We have to act the soonest before it's too late, othe
rwise we might be in a situation wherein one day we can no longer complain but
just stick to the bread afforded to us, by the UN or other countries.

our senators, congressmen, governors and mayors, even the barangay captains doe
sn't want to have an automated polls. they cannot pad the results. cheating in
the elections have been a culture. so when can we change our electoral system.
the computers are there at the comelec, but when are we going to use such? only
in our dreams!

Its good to see the American voting system as an example for other countries, there's no doubt on how the whole voting scenario works on punctuality but it also cannot be denied that some unpleasant situations do take place in some states during elections. There was also a lot of mixed reactions when the EVMs were introduced and most Americans still cannot completely trust the machines which stores the data because it is ultimately humans who enter the data so the last elections still saw a large number of voters with pen and papers. I also feel that since the local officials are given the responsibility of conducting the election there are chances that power abuse may take unpleasant scenes. It only makes sense to doubt the EVMs of technical and human errors and in all the countries conducting elections always had ups and downs but if there are weaknesses the concerned department has to look into the matter and we the voters too have to come to our senses, trust our guts and practice our right to vote without getting sold out.

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