WHY HYBRID/MANUAL POLL SYSTEM IS BEST

THIS is in relation to the column of Mr. Ricardo Saludo in the Feb. 28, 2021 issue of this newspaper titled “Duterte and Congress: Stop automated-election sleaze!”

True, the Smartmatic election system “disenfranchised” the people to witness the counting/tallying of votes, which they had since time immemorial. They write the names of their candidates on the ballot, stay overnight and join the tallying of votes, and watchers for the winning candidates join the precinct election officers to bring the election returns to the municipal board of canvassers.

The main argument on rejecting the hybrid poll system/manual counting is “dagdag-bawas,” which I find hilarious. With all due respect to the House leaders rejecting this, the dagdag-bawas does not occur during the manual counting. In my more than 30 years of engaging in politics in Mountain Province, 23 years of the late Rep. Victor Dominguez’s incumbency, dagdag-bawas during the counting is nearest to impossible. Why, there are watchers for candidates from councilors, vice mayors, mayors, board members, vice governors, governors, congressmen and national candidates if there are. So many eyes watching and very focused to the one reading the ballot, like CCTVs and joining the tallying of the votes, sometimes shouting tally! How can dagdag-bawas prosper with so many eyes watching? In the eventuality that the ballot reader deliberately misreads the ballot, there will be “mayhem.” They

can even protest loudly if a candidate’s name is inadvertently misread. Any election officer knows that he/she will be lynched if she or he were to do so.

Honestly, the dagdag-bawas occurs during the manual transport or unusual manmade delay and waiting in the municipal hall when the barangay (village)/precinct election returns are muddled, vote totals arrows pointing to another candidate etc., dagdag-bawas before the municipal canvassers canvass the barangay/precinct election returns. I have been witness to numerous instances of this operation.

The manual canvassing is like a cinema show that people watch until the canvassing is over even to the wee hours the next day. They love writing the names of their candidates. They are participants in the manual counting. The solution to this dagdag-bawas is this hybrid system. After the manual counting, the election officers transmit electronically to the municipal canvassing server and it is done. The barangay/precinct election is safe and sound at the hands of the municipal canvassers who canvass it manually and electronically transmit it to the provincial canvassers to canvass.

In the present Smartmatic electronic system of voting, the threshold of shading is 20 percent-50 percent-100 percent. The people have no participation and their excitement in joining the manual canvassing is gone? Eaten by the machines? Let the people speak with writing the names of their candidates, let them join the manual canvassing. At least there is a paper trail, the manually written names of candidates, not shaded names.

I hope and pray that our President Rodrigo R. Duterte and the honorable members of Congress will get their bearings and change our electoral system to the hybrid/ manual counting of votes.

Juniper Dominguez #75-B, Upper Engineers Hill Baguio City