Friday, June 4, 2010

Voted... for peace

An absentee voter’s experience

I casted my vote 11 days ahead of the 45 million Filipinos who are registered to vote on May 10, 2010.

It was literally a manual type of voting done in an old multi-purpose hall inside a military camp.

I thought it was a semi-automated voting procedure using the ballot format for PCOS machine but instead, I was given a small piece of paper with blank spaces to write my votes.

I also thought that the voting area was a closed and well-ventilated room but instead, it was a humid makeshift space with small chairs and long tables just enough for four voters to vote at a time.

There was no sample ballot to be found anywhere and the names of the list of candidates for the president, vice-president, senators and party list groups were written in very small letters on white pieces of paper stapled on the top of the table.

Three COMELEC representatives were watching while another three authorized military personnel acting as election officers facilitating the election procedures.

I wanted to complain on the initial process but instead, I kept all my frustrations within myself and focused on the more important reason on why I was there -– to cast my vote.

It took me more or less five minutes to fill-up my ballot with my chosen candidates.

It could have been much lesser time if I did not have a hard time searching for my preferred party list group in a very long list of candidates running for congressional seats (I wonder if this was really the intent of the party list system law that was passed in the 1990s.).

When I returned to the election officers who were seated beside each other to submit my vote, one of them ordered me to place my thumb mark first on my ballot.

It was another frustrating experience of thumb marking process considering that there are available sets of technology equipment in the local market for such procedure.

After complying, an election officer assisted me to place my ballot inside a white envelop and guided me to close it and patch a special election seal on it.

The surprising procedure was when the election officer gave me another white envelop and place my sealed vote inside it and sealed it again before dropping it inside the ballot box.

Before I left the makeshift poll center, I asked a COMELEC representative when will my vote be counted and she said that it will be counted in Metro Manila immediately after the voting period on May 10.

Actually, it was really not a question about the procedure. It was a question made to reassure myself that I was part of the whole exercise of choosing our country’s next leaders.

After I left the makeshift poll center, I was happy and satisfied.

I voted and it was a vote about peace… for myself and for my country. #

1 comment:

  1. as i was reading this post...it makes me realize that you-soldier is deprived from what the election process should be done...before, during and after May election, soldiers nationwide are everywhere...scattered in different places...for what?to protect the PCOS, BEIs and other election paraphernalias and of course protect the votes of the Filipinos...surprisingly,,they were deprived to use the high technically equipment...sana lang na try u man lang yung first automated election...ur also citizen of this land,,,u are part of the changes...anyway thank you for ur service during election..

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