Manila: The elections panel has ruled that elections for village leaders scheduled for October 25, will still use traditional voting process instead of the automated scheme.
According to Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, it would be too costly for the poll body to use the same machines used in the May 10 automated elections. He said budget considerations weigh heavily on the state after it had spent some 7 billion pesos (Dh556,301,419) on the recent political exercise.
"The Comelec commissioners, voting as a whole, have resolved not to automate in this political exercise. We have decided to go manual," Sarmiento said.
On May 10, the Philippines held its first automated elections. Although the exercise had been largely considered a success, Comelec officials deemed that the cost of applying such high-tech polling may outweigh the benefits. Village-wide polls reflect the mandate of a relatively smaller sample of the electorate when compared to national elections.
During village-wide elections, Filipinos vote for their community leaders, from the chairperson to several village councillors as well as youth representatives.
"I don't think the 3.2 billion pesos allocated for these barangay elections would suffice to cover automated elections. If you have 40,000 barangays [villages] this would mean thousands of machines again even if we cluster [the precincts] ... That would mean more expense for the Comelec," reports quoted Sarmiento as saying. After the family, the village is the smallest political unit under the Philippines democracy.
