AFTER five editions of the automated elections system (AES), many Filipino voters remain unfamiliar with the system and on how to properly cast their votes.
An official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) made this observation, saying voter education remains necessary if Filipino voters are to learn how to vote properly.
“Despite the efforts at teaching voters from 2010 all the way up to 2019, the end is still nowhere in sight,” said Comelec – Education and Information Department (EID) head James Jimenez in a statement.
“The disappointing thing is that we still haven’t reached that critical mass of voters we need to ensure that the knowledge of how to vote properly gets organically passed on to succeeding waves of new voters,” he also said.
Jimenez said noted how the ongoing Random Manual Audit (RMA) of the May 2022 polls saw ballots with people making dots in the very center of the oval that they need to fill in completely, those leaving the ovals blank and instead encircling them, and those underlining the names of the candidates they want to vote for, among others.
“The voters either didn’t know the proper way of filling up the ballot or simply didn’t care enough about voting properly that they were okay to do a piss-poor job of it,” he lamented.
“Either way, for these people, at least, voter education clearly fell short of either of both of its twin goals, to teach people the proper way of filling out the ballot and teaching them the value of the vote,” added Jimenez.
It was back in the 2010 national and local polls when the Comelec started using the AES nationwide.
