Poll Watching Part 2

Election day started. We were up way early for comfort ( at around 5:30AM) but it turned out many voters woke up early as well. By the time I arrived at my precinct cluster, dozens were already outside the classrooms, scanning the voters' lists for their names.

Already, the BEI was up and running, making sure everything was in order. I had the honor of saying the morning prayer ( full of petitions which weren't exactly answered: orderly, peaceful elections etc.) before the BEI let in their first voters. A public school teacher ( Actually, everything was handled by public school teachers) was already at the entrance policing the crowd.

As I scanned the the list of voters, I found out there were close to a thousand registered voters in our cluster. That didn't bother me earlier until I finally got a grasp of the actual pace of the voting process. By 8 in the morning, close to only 40 voters had cast their ballots. If the cluster had to accommodate all of its voters, the rate should have been higher, closer to 125 ballots cast per hour ( assuming we had 8 hours to finish the work).

Admittedly, there were some flaws in the process, most of them stemming out from incorrect procedures brought about from the last elections. I guess many voters have already discussed these extensively and I do hope the COMELEC is keen on listening to these comments as we look forward to the next exercise. For instance, there was the issue of clustering several precincts together which could have been avoided if the COMELEC was more liberal in the use of their spare PCOS machines. Also, there was the issue of a disjointed flow in voter verification (voters had to go back to the voter lists twice; first, to locate their names and, second, to affix their thumb marks after voting). Then there was the issue of a non-consolidated listing of the voters which made locating names and identities a time-consuming nuisance. All in all, the voting process in our cluster must have been a very frustrating experience for everyone and, as volunteers, we could not do anything but watch.

If I were to encapsulate the whole PPRCV experience into one word, "boredom" would be that word. Boredom, coupled with sleep debt, made for a very long day. Several times, I went home to check up on my sisters and also to escape, even just for awhile, the duty of watching countless strange faces fill up their ballot forms. Clearly, there was nothing to the job except watch people vote.

By the time the last voter had left the premises, it was around 9:30 PM. I, for one, didn't expect it to end this late in the evening but there I was. Soon after, we got busy for the last part of the day. Unused ballot forms had to be ripped apart. Election returns had to be collected. The PCOS machine was dismantled and wrapped again for storage. Checklists had to be submitted. By the time our job was over, it was around 1 in the morning of the next day.

The last thing that went to my tired mind before I dozed off was the thought that that day should be a holiday. Well, at around 7:30PM later, I was off to work, eye bugs and all.