Note that I wrote this post on the day of the elections. I was frazzled and high on caffeine. But I still stand by this opinion: the election is hardly something that we should break bottles of champagne over. It was relatively peaceful. RELATIVE - being the operative word.
Failure of Elections has been reported in 4 municipalities in Lanao del Sur. Fire fights in Sulu. Burned PCOS machines: intentionally by “terrorists” and unintentionally through some electrical burning issues. 65 machines are defective in Isabella. Explosions, power outtakes, long lines that lead people to just leave without voting… And the list goes on…
Leading up to Election Day, the whole brouhaha about these stupid machines have backed the people in a corner.
Which prompted everyone to ask: Will we delay the voting or push through? Both choices are not particularly assuring.
It’s quite obvious that this automation move has (likely deliberately) not been executed properly. Why contact a company like Smartmatic that raised credibility issues in the Venezuelan elections? Why only have 2 companies bid for the automation? (The other company is a sister company of Smartmatic) Why delay releasing the machines? With Customs giving some flimsy reason like the paper work are not good. I mean, come on, the government can’t release the machines that they themselves commissioned? They, themselves, should be certain of the legitimacy of the paper work. Why did they take out the UV and receipt functions of the machines (that were meant to check the accuracy of the machines)? Why are the machines so sensitive? Slight misalignment, slight scratching, slight folds, slight over shading leads to a null vote. (High school diagnostic test seem to use the same concept of shading choices and these tests seem do ok for years.) Why deliver and test the machines just days before the elections? And, why are these flash cards suddenly erroneous and at the last minute?
WHY, WHY, WHY???
People are left to decide between crying foul, protesting and, consequently consider delaying the elections – BUT what does a delay entail?
Is this the plan B? Is this the goal of the incumbents? Will these give declining candidates more time to strategize? Is this constitutional? Is this fair to the people? Is this not a form of bullying the citizens into agreeing to a delay? What are the implications of a delay?
If we push for pushing through with the elections – What does this entail?
Inefficient deliveries and distribution of PCOS machines and ballots? Defective machines? Long lines? Power outages? Bombings? Killings? Kidnappings? Brown outs? Long slow moving lines? Failure of elections in some places? (As these events continue to occur today)
We’ve made a decision in pushing through with the elections – but at what implications? And so, the saga continues…
It seems we are now called to either ACCEPT or NOT ACCEPT these incidents that are meant to cast doubts in the election process.
We are now once again forced into a corner. It is a win-win for those who create chaos, just as it was a win-win for them when the PCOS machines failed the tests.
If we cry out and question the elections or if we cry “failure of elections”… to whose benefit will this be? It seems it would be for those who perpetuated the chaos.
If we accept the chaos and accept the election results, then it follows that we accept all the election chaos (the doubts, the troubles, the violence, the dysfunctional machines, etc.), and it follows that our next president and leaders will lead with casts of a so called doubtful election. So, it seems, in this manner the chaos makers still win.
It’s a lose/lose situation for all of us.
I woke up today expecting some anomalies, some dubious events, and more or less the usual election fanfare.
I thought that whatever “cheating” methods would have been in place by now, maybe the machines would be calibrated a certain way by now, if they were. I expected moves to be sly, to be less blatant…
But it seems they wanted to cover all bases. It seems all definitions and all alleys of how to interpret what constitutes a “failure of elections” were set into motion.
I am outraged at the blatant tenacity…
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