People power. Edsa II. The world took cognizance of these events which proved that the Filipinos can rise up to calls of greatness! May 10, 2010, the Filipinos made a repeat! Personally, a day before the Philippines’ first automated elections, I was skeptical: will the PCOS machines work? Will my country finally use computers instead of the jurassic “mano-a-mano” elections? Well as the whole world now knows, we were able to conduct our first ever automated elections last May 10, 2010 successfully!
However, just like a mother giving birth to her first born baby, it had its birth pains! I will cite the first and to my mind was the biggest problem: THE LONG LINES OF VOTERS WAITING FOR THEIR TURN TO VOTE. In the case of my family, we finished voting after staying on the line for 1 hour and 45 minutes! This is no match to an office mate who waited for four hours under the heat of the sun!
Let me cite the following factors that caused the long lines of voters:
1. The clustering of precincts. In the case of our precinct number 0456 A, in the previous elections, we were only about 150 voters which were listed and assigned to a classroom as our voting area. In the past elections, our waiting time was very negligible since there were only about 150 voters who were assigned to the specific classroom. Last May 10 however, our precinct was clustered together with four other precincts (0455 A, 0455 B, 0456 B and 0457 A). According to one member of the Board of Election Inspectors, our cluster had about 800 voters who were assigned to vote inside one classroom. By simply increasing the number of voters from 150 to 800 who will cast their votes, the last elections multiplied the number of voters who will cast their votes in a classroom five times! What do you expect? Obviously, a long line of voters! The reason for the clustering was the maximization of the use of the PCOS machine. It would have been impractical to have one PCOS machine for every precinct, hence, the clustering.
2. Since it was the first computerized elections, the voters were all too excited to troop to the precincts. In my family’s case, we arrived at the precinct at 7:10 am but there were already about 30 voters ahead of us falling in line. In other words, voters went to the precincts early almost at the same time.
3. The senior citizens were given the privilege to have an express lane and were made to vote ahead of those already falling in line. However, even with the accorded privilege, instead of the average of 7 minutes to fill up the ballot, the senior citizens voted longer.
I could still recall my Operations Management Course when I took my Master in Business Administration degree from Ateneo de Manila University Graduate School of Business 15 years where the topic on queuing was discussed intensively. In more practical terms, the best example is the queuing of clients transacting business in a bank. The ideal situation is to make the bank transaction to be as quick as possible for the clients with the most effective number of tellers being deployed by the bank. It would not be cost effective if there are many bank tellers more than the normal number of clients and at the same time, if there will be more clients falling in line for such a long period resulting to backing out of many of them. There were quantitative computations that we studied as a way to come up with cost effective number of tellers that a bank should have.
In the case of the first automated elections of our country, let me put forward the following solution to address the causes of the problem of the long queues of the voters:
The local COMELEC with assistance of the specific Clustered Precinct Board Of Elections Inspectors should make a voting schedule of the voters for the clustered precinct. Since the voting time is from 7 am to 6 pm, the about 800 voters may be assigned a time slot for them to troop to the pools. For example, the first two hours, from 7 am to 9 am, could be the turn of the senior citizens (those above 60 years old including pregnant women and disabled) to vote. For the rest of the day, the voters could be assigned alphabetically, say voters with family names beginning with A and B will troop the precinct from 9 am to 10 am, names beginning with C and D from 10 am to 11 am and so on and so forth. A stub with priority number will be given to the voters first come, first served as they arrived the precinct. With the stub, they do not have to fall in line but could be seated near the precinct and wait till their number is called. Chairs or even school desks should be provided for waiting voters so they sit while wating for their turn. The individual voter could be advised with their assigned time slot when the COMELEC will send the sample ballot to the him.
The COMELEC should be reminded that the voters are their clients. As such, they should be given all the convenience that the COMELEC can offer so that backing out will be avoided. By the way, some voter centers have made their own system to avoid long lines during the last elections. For instance, in Malabon priority numbers were given to voters as they arrived at the precincts.
