• Home
• Analysis
• Policy
• Central Government
• Local Government
• Healthcare
• Education
• Digital Inclusion
• Technology
• Security

Central Government, Policy

E-elections get green light in Philippines

By Robin Hicks | 16 June 2009

The Philippines is pushing ahead with plans to hold its first automated elections next year.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has said that Automated Elections System Law will ensure the automation of the May 2010 national and local elections.

The poll body has agreed to use Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) technology, a system where optical paper ballots, hand-marked by the voters, are inserted for counting into optical ballot scanners placed in polling precincts.

PCOS is a Optical Mark Reader (OMR) system, one of the two automation technologies used in the August 2008 automated elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

After a month-long bidding process, the poll body awarded the automation project to Smartmatic Total Information Management Inc.

“Automating the elections is our one big shot at modernising Philippine democracy. It is our chance of making each vote be counted, and each voice heard. It will show the world that we can implement the laws that we make,” said Senator Richard Gordon.

“Having automated elections will allow us to resolve political disputes and allow elected candidates to concentrate on the business of providing good governance,” he added.

---