For the first time in Philippine history, comes the first automated polls so far in Asia and the Philippines becomes the only country that executed this kind of electing government officials.
As expected, voters are still confused how the process could be implemented, considering the amount of time needed to educate the voters and even the teachers who will manage the election as Board of Election Inspectors are still greenhorn as to how the operation could be managed.
The Philippines being inexperienced in electronic voting, this would entail a thorough scrutiny on the operating procedures and the Commission On Election plays a vital role as to the proper conduct of trainings, workshops and seminars so that the teachers and voters would functions their specific roles comes election time.

How the Election will be Conducted

As outlined by the Commission on Election, there are some guidelines to follow in order that the conduct of election would become smooth and orderly. To help the voters get over their techno-jitters, the following details are placed on the table:

1) One hour before opening at 7:00 in the morning the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) should be in the precincts to prepare the election materials and the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines supplied by Smartmatic-TIM Corp. To date there are 76,000 clustered voting precincts all over the country.
2) Each precinct will have a maximum of 1000 voters and one PCOS machine. Other PCOS machines will be used as backup.
3) The BEI would composed of a chair and two members, with least one IT expert to manage the technical aspect of the PCOS machine.
4) The BEI should show the empty ballot box to the public, sealed package of ballots, and Book of Voters to the public, including the main memory and back-up cards to watchers. This memory cards will remain sealed during voting.
5) After the BEI has plugged the PCOS machine, the screen will display: "Please insert security key for authentication". The iButton security key, a thumb-sized device containing information on user and the precinct, should be inserted into the slot. Another message appears:"Security key verified".
6) To initialize voting, the BEI selects the "Open voting" icon on the menu. The BEI members will enter their personal identification numbers (PINs).
7) The BEI will choose next the "Initialize vote counters" option. The machine automatically prints a report showing zero votes for all candidates. The PCOS machine is ready to accept ballots when the message "Please insert ballot" appears.

To be continued next issue: The voting Process, Counting and Transmission of Election Results.