With the advent of the modern technology we are using today, we are given the chance to prove that we can bring this modern technology into one of the most important events that will take place on our country. It will make the election in our country be automated for the first time. That means to say that from voting until counting, we will be aided by computers with special programs intended to fulfill this specific purpose. But what do this automation mean for our country?

In principle, election automation will remove the potential for human error/cheating from the ballot review and ballot counting. It can give near instant feedback of the election results. As soon as voting closes, it should be technically possible to get the election results within an hour.

We think it will have the following positive effects:

1. Remove the potential for human error and cheating at ballot reading and tallying
2. Remove the delay and potential for cheating between ballot tallying and preparation of election returns
3. Remove the delay and potential for cheating during tallying of election returns
4. Make elections much cheaper to execute
5. Reduce election violence significantly.

You’re probably wondering why automating the elections could reduce related violence significantly. Well, you won’t have to gun people down if there are no ballots being delivered to polling centers. Though, due to the dual nature of our planned automation (manual polling will continue in less developed parts of the country), such violence won’t disappear entirely. There are also changes that are expected to happen with this automation process. Such changes might be:

1. Quick counts will become obsolete. If the results can be reported on the same day, there will be no market for quick counts. (NAMFREL has recently announced no quick counts for 2010 -Editor)
2. Labor will no longer be needed for several days/weeks to manage and monitor elections. the resulting creative destruction will affect teachers, poll-watchers, men of arms, media people, advertising, and the peripheral economy that they patronize during election period.
3. Guns and goons will give way to geeks and gold. Attempts at cheating will shift to hacking the transmittal of election results from far flung areas to Manila, as well as hacking the tallying of results in Manila. This could have the happy side-effect of pushing the computer and internet revolution into far flung provinces, as money flows to reward technical know-how every six years.
4. Quick direct from population feedback will become a viable option—referendum questions like charter change can be realistically executed in a short period of time if elections become so cheap and quick to do.

In other words, automating elections in the Philippines will have far-reaching effects. At least if and when the entire country’s elections are automated. Conceivably, less people will need to watch over the process, so that means fewer customers for any nearby vendors or establishments in each area’s election stations.