Half of Pinoys believe Comelec ready for auto polls – survey

MANILA, Philippines – Barely three months before the May elections, about one out of every two Filipinos thinks the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is prepared to effectively implement the automated election system (AES) despite setbacks, a recent Pulse Asia survey revealed.

“Despite the delay in the delivery of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines and other setbacks faced by the Comelec in connection with the automation of the coming elections, a small majority of Filipinos (52 percent) still believes in the preparedness of the poll body to effectively implement the new system,” Pulse Asia said in its January 2010 Pre-Election Survey.

It said this view is articulated by “big pluralities to sizeable majorities” across geographic areas (44 percent to 67 percent) and socio-economic groupings (50 percent to 52 percent).

Nineteen percent of Filipinos express the opposite view while 30 percent are ambivalent on the matter.

The survey, released yesterday, showed that Visayans are most inclined to believe in the preparedness of the Comelec (67 percent), while Metro Manilans are most likely to have a contrary opinion (31 percent).

In the meantime, indecision levels across geographic areas range from 20 percent in the Visayas to 34 percent in the rest of Luzon, while in the different socio-economic groupings, figures vary from 24 percent in Class ABC to 32 percent in Class E. 71 percent know little about automation Pulse Asia also said seven out of 10 Filipino voters still have “little or no knowledge at all” about the automated election system (AES).

The survey found that 71 percent of Filipino adults still have little or no knowledge at all about the new system, while 46 percent claimed they know a little about it and 25 percent admitted not knowing anything about the automated election system.

“Little/no knowledge about the AES is reported by majorities in the different geographic areas (62 percent to 80 percent) and socio-economic groupings (61 percent to 79 percent),” Pulse Asia said in a statement.

“In contrast, only eight percent of Filipinos know a great deal about the AES while 20 percent know enough about it,” the survey firm added.

Pulse Asia said “great/sufficient knowledge about the new system” is more pronounced in Metro Manila and Class ABC (both at 39 percent) than in the other geographic areas and socio-economic classes.

The non-commissioned survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,800 representative adults 18 years old and above.

Meanwhile, Pulse Asia also found that a majority of Filipinos trust public school teachers to act impartially as members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) and believe in their capability to manage the AES in the coming elections – 63 percent and 66 percent, respectively.

The January survey also revealed that the number of Filipinos who think the May 2010 polls will be clean and its results credible due to automation greatly outnumber those who don’t (48 percent versus 14 percent); however, a considerable number (37 percent) remains ambivalent on the matter.

Likewise, the survey showed 54 percent of Filipinos expect trouble to arise if the results of the May 2010 elections will not be clean and credible; however, in the event that election results are not seen as clean and credible by the citizenry, 58 percent will support but not join any protest actions that may take place.

In Mindanao, about the same percentages either expect trouble or express indecision on the matter (38 percent to 43 percent versus 39 percent to 49 percent).

Pulse Asia’s nationwide survey has a plus or minus two percentage points margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level.

Comelec resents surveys vs poll automation

Meanwhile, the Comelec yesterday resented surveys against the automation of the May 10 polls, saying that voters need not know so much about the PCOS machines.

Renato Garcia, Comelec consultant for information technology, said voters are not taught how to operate the PCOS machines primarily because “they will have nothing to do with” them.

“Other than to feed the ballots (into the PCOS machines) they are not going to press any button. So when you ask the question ‘do you know much about the computer even if they have actual experience?’ What will the person say? Little? None at all because he is not going to use it,” he noted in a press briefing.

Garcia added that those doing the surveys should be “careful with the way they structure their questions.”

“So it’s not fair to say that, because the automation is more in the counting and canvassing. The voter has very little interaction with the machines. There are more interactions with the day-to-day equipment that we use, like ATM and your cell phone,” he said in a reaction to a Pulse Asia survey which revealed that seven out of 10 Filipinos admitted they have little or no knowledge about the automation system.

Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer has reiterated the poll body’s call for the critics of the automation to give it a chance.

“Voters know how to vote but you should not operate the machines. They might destroy the machines. The machines are about to be completed (delivery) so why not give it a chance? This is the first time that we will automate and we will never know how effective the machines will be. Let’s try it now,” he said. –Sheila Crisostomo, Philippine Star