Barangay elections to remain manual

MANILA, Philippines - Due to lack of funds, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has opted to shelve plans to automate the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections later this year.

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said the seven-member commission unanimously agreed to adopt a manual system of voting and counting for the barangay and SK polls in October.

He said the manual system also means the Board of Election Inspectors will be counting the votes manually by using the traditional tally sheets.

According to Sarmiento, the Comelec budget of P3.2 billion for the conduct of the barangay and SK elections would be insufficient if they would adopt an automated system.

“I don’t think P3.2 billion would suffice to cover automated elections because it would require us to use thousands of automated machines for the country’s 40,000 barangays,” Sarmiento said.

Sarmiento added that unlike in the national elections, there is no need to transmit results of the elections, which is one of the main functions of the automated machines.

Sarmiento said the Comelec is still toying with the idea of using a different ballot for the coming electoral exercise.

“The Commission has yet to decide whether to use the traditional ballot where the voter has to write the name of the candidates or the paper ballot that would only require the voter to shade the names of their bets,” Sarmiento said.

Some of the commissioners are in favor of using the latter kind so there would be continuity, since this was adopted in the May 2010 presidential elections.

However, Sarmiento said shading would also require 80,000 ballot designs or one ballot each for the SK and barangay polls in each of the country 40,000 barangays.

“This is quite complex and the Comelec might miss names in the printing. So right now we are waiting for the report from the National Printing Office to determine if they are capable of printing 80,000 designs,” Sarmiento said.

He added that they hope to come out with the calendar of activities for the barangay and SK elections by next week.