The much talked about Philippine election has still managed to see the day even though there are so many speculations and arguments against it. Me and my whole family woke up early (around 5:30 am to be exact) in order to avoid the long lines that may awaits us later. I think it was just mom being to excited over the whole thing while me and my two other siblings are cool with the not waking up so early to cast our votes. By 6:00 pm the whole family went to the polling precinct only to find out that the lines have just started to build up and the actual voting will start at 7:00 am. after locating our precincts, me and my brother were the second and third one to fall in line. The BEI told us that the election will start at 7:00 pm but it didn't because the PCOS machine failed to start up. By 7:20 we are were allowed to enter the precinct and vote even if the machine have't been fixed yet.
Now on the actual voting process, I have completely made up my mind on who will my President and Vice-President will be, let's just say I went with the red-yellow tandem. The big challenge is the senators and the local candidates. Everything now boils down to the familiarity of the candidates and those who have made a good impression on me on the past election campaigns. On the local candidate lineup I just stick with the known line up of candidates my mom supports, because I personally do not know every one of them and their capabilities.
I was so anxious on how I shade the oval on my selected candidate because I don't want to waste my vote. So I think it took me about 4-7 minutes in carefully shading the ballot and on-the-spot picking of the local candidates. What I noticed and feared as I shade on the ballot is that the ink from the pen provided by the smartmatic/precinct blots through the opposite side of the ballot where the local candidates are listed. what if the machine won't read that side of the ballot. WEll, like anybody else I didn't experienced any public demonstration on how does the automation work so I have my worries. After repetitive going through each candidate and making sure that all ovals have been properly shaded, I now wait for the PCOS machine to be fixed. Two technical support personnel from Placewell International Services Corporations were already there fixing the election machine went haywire. After forty five minutes, we have finally inserted our ballots on the now working PCOS machine. Seeing the "congratulations" on the lower right most corner of the PCOS machine gave me a sense of relief that my vote won't be wasted and safe from any forms of conventional modes of election cheating.
We Casted Our Votes and Now We Wait...
