Day 132: Ballots Cast 170 & 211

Even though our entire family trooped to the Santo Rosario Elementary School before 10:00 am on election day, it was nearly noontime when hubby and brother-in-law, Jeff, finally got to vote. Since it was already lunchtime and the BEI's had to take their break, it left my father-in-law and myself still in line waiting for our turn.

It was a good thing that the poll assistants took the initiative to make a list of those still in line  so that they still retained their place in the line after the noontime break. 

I got a text message from my father-in-law that the voting had resumed and they had already called the first 20 people on the list.  I was glad that in the nearly two hour break, I was able to have a decent lunch with my family and had a short nap to recharge. When I got to the school, there was still a pretty long line there although the people were now waiting for their names to be called as the polling people already had a list of those previously in line.

After about half an hour of waiting, I found myself finally inside the polling precinct. After the initial identification check, I was given my copy of the official ballot. For someone who actually read up on the entire process and knew of the do's and don'ts, I didn't think I'd still feel a bit clammy and scared once I got the ballot. After choosing a seat, I carefully set my ballot down on the table, taking extreme care not to crease or fold it unnecessarily. I paid careful attention to my marking pen and the position of the hand holding it too. I didn't want to blot the sides of the ballot in fear that it may invalidate it.

Since I knew my list of candidates by heart already, it only took me about less than 3 minutes to accomplish the entire thing. I took another minute or two to check front and back, making sure I didn't overvote and I shaded the ovals correctly. When I approached the PCOS machine, I had to wait awhile as there was a lady who was having a problem feeding her ballot. I believe it was the 3rd or 4th time her ballot was rejected. I saw the tears slowly forming in her eyes, the hope in her heart that for the final time, her ballot gets fed into the machine. And thank God, in her last chance, she made it! Ha! Then it was my turn to feel afraid and unsure...I was praying over and over, "Dear God, please let my vote be counted...please!"

I glanced at the screen to look at the ballot count as advised by my online volunteer friends right before feeding in my ballot. After inserting my ballot, I waited for a few seconds and I whispered a prayer of thanks once I saw the word "CONGRATULATIONS" on the screen. I was vote #211 in my clustered precinct. Later on, I found out from hubby that his was vote #170. It was a milestone in Philippine election history and we knew we had to take a photo of our index fingers as proof. We now sport the latest "in" thing - indelible ink on our finger.

Day 131: Right to Suffrage

After nearly two decades, I find myself lining up once again to exercise my right to vote. There were a lot of differences this time around - for one, this is the first time in Philippine election history that an automated election process was conducted, another thing is that I shifted precincts from the city in 1992 to the barrio in 2010. I didn't experience the crowded feel and confusion I did when I voted in QC.  There were only about 500+ registered voters in our clustered precinct so the line was pretty much shorter than in most areas and there was quite an order and organization in both the people and the process.  

It was fun to observe both the old and young alike experiencing pre-voting jitters...unsure of the process and yet excited to exercise their right. To most, the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scanner) was like an alien monster that they had to overcome only to breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing the word "CONGRATULATIONS" on the screen as soon as their ballot was fed into the machine. Lining up may have lasted hours but the voting process itself took only about 5 minutes or less. The elderly certainly changed their initial impression of the automated election process once they experienced how easy it was compared to the old way of doing things.

It was far from perfect and it was not without its share of problems and criticism but certainly, this year's elections was a huge step towards a better election process in the future.