Megalection 2022

The elections are over and, much to everyone’s delight, the transition to full automation appears to have been a huge success. Well, at least a qualified one, as the perennial products of post-electoral process — sore losers — are still trying to claim that manual tampering or all sorts of technological flaws have hampered their dates with destiny.

To concede is cool, guys! Do it now and move on.

Witnessing the sweltering process itself last Monday made me think about how technology, societal changes, along with architecture and physical design, could address issues still connected with citizens’ participation in this seasonal display of democracy.

The long lines of voters waiting to vote, the heat and discomfort that had to be endured, the lack of chairs, tables, access to decent toilets, as well as the lengthy voting process itself need to be looked at. All these need to be rectified, to ensure that more citizens are enticed to vote the next time around. The thread that binds these problems together lends itself to some design-driven innovations, which should be considered in our evaluation of the just-concluded event, as well as in preparation for future ones.

Designing for people and their communal (even political) activities is what architects and related professionals — landscape architects, interior designers and urban planners — do. To ponder the requirements of an election — the need for a comfortable venue, ideally air-conditioned or protected from the elements; the need for this space to accommodate thousands of people and provide for their comfort (as in comfort rooms) while waiting; and the need for security in and out of the venue — brings to mind one building type already tailor-made for all this.

The Mall As Seasonal Civic Venue

Shopping malls are designed to be accessed and used by up to hundreds of thousands of people, not just once every three years, but daily. They are ubiquitous in the Philippine landscape and have their own well-defined “precincts” that can accommodate hundreds of electoral precincts without trouble. Malls are now embedded in our present reality, and really, why not make them more useful than the cathedrals of consumption that they are?

Consider these points: First; shopping malls have connections to public transport and parking for thousands of vehicles. In Manila, they are connected to MRT and LRT stations. Many voting precincts are housed in schools that are decrepit (a problem the new administration needs to solve), hard to get to, far from major public transport routes and generally have no parking.

Secondly, before anyone gets inside a mall they pass through security checks. Even local police authorities recognize that once inside a mall, most people feel and, in fact, are relatively safe. Regular polling places in the city and elsewhere are generally soft targets for the shenanigans politicos resort to when friendly persuasion or direct vote-buying fails to deliver results.

Third, most malls now have central atria and events halls that can accommodate thousands at a time. These can easily be converted to accommodate voting booths and all the other spaces and facilities for a standard polling center. These facilities cannot be compromised with political ads, flyers or billboards as malls do not allow banners and posters other than those selling shampoo, cell phone services or cosmetic surgery.

Fourth, while people wait in queue, they can be entertained by giant LED screens, music from the mall’s sound system and possibly even fed by roving waiters from the malls’ fast food outlets. Toilets are, of course, not a problem. Need I remind everyone that all malls are air-conditioned and, even more important, have back-up power.

Civics And Commerce, A Public-Private Partnership

This is a win-win situation for people and malls. The malls generally have to close during elections and offering them as polling places brings back otherwise lost profits. People benefit from easy access, security, cleanliness, comfort and the fact that they can watch a movie and shop afterwards. Salespeople and staff of the malls need not be disenfranchised. They can be allowed to vote earlier, or in shifts.

Malls are already quasi-civic spaces with some operators allowing government functions like driver’s license renewal, and seasonal BIR payments. Non-traditional mall operations like Catholic Masses are allowed in the evolution of mall use from the American model that doesn’t allow such mixed uses.

The interesting thing, in fact, is that the originator of the modern American shopping mall, the architect Victor Gruen, envisioned malls to also incorporate civic functions and free public events. He expounded this concept in several books and even planned a few such complexes in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Clients balked at the idea of public uses in private spaces. American cities, in any case, had ample (or at least much more than here in the Philippines) civic spaces and well-built institutional structures such as schools and auditoria to handle events like elections.

Metro Manila and the rest of our towns and cities nationwide have lost much of their civic spaces. Plazas are filled with all sorts of useless buildings. Schools, as mentioned earlier, are inadequate even for their primary use (lack of space, tables, toilets and teachers). There is a dearth of open public, much less, green space. Malls can step in regularly in civic events such as elections. As to the green open space — they could turn their roofs into parks, as SM North and Ayala’s TriNoma malls have partially done.

This is not to absolve local government units of the responsibility of providing (or recovering) civic spaces, plazas and parks. But in majority of our inner towns and cities it is difficult (but not impossible, as seen in my past feature on Pasig City’s Central Park).

From Malls To Smart Machines

The automation technology used in the election seems fan-tastic. Technogeeks, however, will bash the system as being clunky and about 10 years behind what it could be. “Who can trust a system that ends in –atic?,” they say, which is where geeks believe the system will end up shortly. 

Both from the hardware and software site, the system could be improved. What could and should be done is for local research and development outfits or ITC and engineering colleges of our best tertiary institutions to evaluate the system based on its performance in the last elections.

I’m sure that, if we had the will, we could locally put together a system just from parts sourced from shops on Gilmore Avenue. It would cost 10 times less. It should be something, too, that will not need a good poking by a walis-tingting to get going.

But hey, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Why give opportunities for corruption. Oops, I forgot, the anti-corrupt party won, right? (We still need to be vigilant, our new leaders-apparent may be saints, but what about the rest of the government?)

The system will probably still be good till 2013. By 2016, however, we could probably just text vote or download appropriate apps (software applications for those of you luddites out there), so we can vote with our smart phones, smart tablets, or smart book readers.

Now, if only there were more smart, incorruptible people to vote for.

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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.