We’ve got 30 days ’till October 31, 2009… last big push! Let’s aim for 1 Million more registrants and show the candidates that we mean business!

“We’re already moving more towards the voter education and agenda-building phases in our four-point program,” said Ching Jorge, YouthVote lead convener. “Of course we also continue to encourage the youth to register, but we’re now focused on getting them informed even before election campaign starts.”

YouthVote has launched its candidate monitoring site early this year in an effort to inform voters on the stand of presidential aspirants on the issues concerning the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), a baseline measure of human development. “The next president will have to report the progress of these goals to the United Nations in 2015 and we want to make sure that these issues will be part of the candidates’ platforms,” Jorge added.

“After the filing of candidacy, we would update the candidates featured on the website and transform it into something like a monitoring tool,” said Jaime Garchitorena, YouthVote’s information technology lead. He explained that the group is already working on an MDG monitoring tool that would enable anyone to assess and record whether certain conditions in their area have improved or not. “We want to make sure that people will hold the elected candidates responsible.”

“Accountability is a key factor of civic engagement,” added Tanya Hamada, YouthVote’s regional coordinator, “and we want to make sure that after the hype of the elections, the alliance we built, especially in the regions, will remain a force of reform.”

On September 26, YouthVote will conduct a youth forum on the 2010 elections and the MDGs at the University of the Philippines Diliman. The program includes a workshop-training of youth leaders on social accountability.

Last Friday, YouthVote conducted a time-and-motion study on filling up the new ballot that will be used for the automated elections at the First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities (FAITH) in Tanauan, Batangas. Results show that, on average, it may take 8 minutes and 4 seconds to fill up the proposed ballot.

“We thought it better to experiment and investigate instead of whining about automated elections,” said Garchitorena. “I think the youth and the public in general deserves to know the facts of this new technology and process.”

YouthVote designed an improvised ballot, using substitute questions for 32 electoral positions with 339 candidates printed on both sides of the paper. The ballot, which measured 25 inches, was based on the latest sample design of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC).

In an exit survey, the students generally had positive feedback and noted that shading the circles was most helpful, while the length of ballot was least helpful. Close to 700 college students, all of voting age, participated in the simulation.

The activity was the group’s proactive response to concerns regarding difficulties and delays that might be caused by shading the ballot and clustering of precincts in the coming elections. The COMELEC plans to collapse the existing 320,415 voting precincts into 80,146 clustered precincts in order to match the available 82,200 counting machines, also known as PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan). The new set up will cluster up to 1,000 registered voters in every precinct, which will be open for 11 hours.

Early last year, YouthVote has already engaged in dialogues with COMELEC to immediately resume voter registration to accommodate more new registrants. They have since been working with the COMELEC ensuring that the youth would be a significant voice in the 2010 elections and have lobbied for a petition outlining four (4) possible areas where it can help COMELEC address some limitations of the registration process for students and young professionals who are away from their areas of residence: 1) utilizing schools for a registration/information campaign; 2) expanding the availability of registration materials to schools and the Internet; 3) setting-up satellite registration centers or field mobile registration units; and 4) assigning additional special registration days each first Saturday of the month.

YouthVote, in partnership with the First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities (FAITH), PoliticalArena.com, with support from the Former Senior Government Officials (FSGO) and the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), conducted the simulation study in response to concerns regarding delays that might be caused by the clustering of precincts in the coming elections. COMELEC plans to collapse the existing 320,415 voting precincts into 80,146 clustered precincts in order to match the available 82,200 counting machines, also known as PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan).

With this new set up, up to 1,000 registered voters will have to cast their votes in every voting center within 11 hours, unlike only a maximum of 200 registered voters casting their ballots in 9 hours in the previous set up.

In past elections, voters write on the names of their selected candidates on the ballot, but next year’s automated elections will have the names of all candidates printed on the ballot that has been designed for use with the PCOS machines. The voter will simply have to shade the oval beside their choice of candidate for each position.

For its time-and-motion study, YouthVote designed an improvised ballot based on the latest sample design shared by COMELEC. YouthVote’s improvised ballot is 25 inches long, uses an Arial Narrow size 12 font, and lists substitute questions for 32 electoral positions and substitutes for 339 candidates printed on both sides of the paper.

The time-and-motion study was conducted in a classroom in the FAITH campus in Tanuan, Batangas. Close to 700 2nd to 4th year college students, all of voting age, participated in the voting simulation. YouthVote representatives noted that the simulation gave a best time/case scenario for the elections since the study participants were all college students who are used to taking standardized tests that employ a similar format to the ballot. The study focused only on filling up the ballots and does not look into the use of PCOS machines for vote counting, since the improvised ballots are not machine readable.

Results of the simulation show that an average of 8 minute and 4 second for a student voter to fill up a ballot. Assuming non-student voters will require double the time, YouthVote sees the need to have at least 24 voters filling up their ballots simultaneously at a clustered precinct in order to complete the filling up of ballots in 11 hours. However, this doesn’t take into account the time required for other activities before and after filling up the ballot.

Anticipating that non-student voters will take a longer time to fill up the new ballot, YouthVote recommends further simulation studies on other sectors, especially the elderly. Moreover, COMELEC and other groups’ voters’ education programs should include familiarization with the new ballot and voting process, and encourage voters to come to the voting station decided on their candidates.

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Posted by Paola Deles, YouthVotePhilippines core member

1. Open Windows paint or equivalent picture viewer/editor
2. Open a new file
3. Go to the COMELEC search engine by follwing this link http://www.comelec.gov.ph/findprecinct/findprecinct.aspx using your preferred browser
4. Center the result in your browser
5. Press the CTRL and PrtSc keys at the same time
6. Go back to paint/picture viewer/editor
7. Click edit
8. Click paste
9. Image from the COMELEC page should now be captured on your viewer editor
10. Click file, then save

Note: Instructions are for Windows-based operating system. For any other OS or picture editor/viewer please let us know so we could help or ask other co-users for the equivalent processes. Share the info and enjoy!

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Posted by Jaime Garchitorena, YouthVotePhilippines information technology lead

On behalf of the Movement for Good Governance, I invite you to a concert on Monday, May 11, 2009 at 8:00 pm at the Music Museum to raise awareness and funds for the 2010 elections and beyond. Entitled 365 Days to Change – Todo na ‘to, the concert marks off exactly one year left to a very important Presidential and General Election for the country. MGG has teamed up with ArtistsRevolution, a group of concerned artists, musicians, cmposers, singers, and directors, to help raise awraeness about the importance of these elections to good governance.

MGG was launched last year and is a group dedicated to promoting good governance. It’s initial activities are focused on voter registration and education (in partnership with Youth Vote Philippines and Young Public Servants); election automation, selection criteria and scorecards for candidates, and town hall meetings with candidates on specific public policy issues Proceeds of the concert will go towards funding communication efforts and workshops of both MGG and ArtistsRevolution to enable us to reach more people in voter education programs.

For the concert, ArtistsRevolution has brought together a wonderful cast composed of Juana Change, Jim Paredes, Joey Ayala, Isay Alvarez, Robert Sena, Leah Navarro, Radioactive Sago, and many others to bring to you a show that promises to be entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, all at the same time. Ticket prices are available at P500 P1000, P2000, P3000, P4500, and P6000. If you would like to buy tickets and donate them to students, that would be great too. For tickets and inquiries please email yvotephilippines@gmail.com or wedeservebetterph@gmail.com

Thank you!

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Posted by Ching Jorge, YouthVotePhilippines lead convener

The COMELEC website has a feature of checking whether an individual is registered or not. I found out that I am still registered though I have no records for my biometrics. After office hours yesterday, I immediately proceed to the bus station for an eight-hour trip to Mulanay, Quezon Province where I am registered. Aside from seeing my parents whom I have not seen for months, I was so excited for the trip to have my biometrics captured and claim my voters ID which I have been waiting for, for the past elections.

Upon arriving at the local COMELEC office at around 10:00 in the morning, all my excitement faded upon seeing that the said office is padlocked. My temper escalated upon seeing the long lines of equally excited youngsters whom I assume are first time voters. Some were even wearing their PE t-shirts of some Manila schools. What I was not surprised is that most of them are like me who intend to maximize their long vacation and placing their registration among their to-do list.

The COMELEC en banc released a resolution stating that their local offices should be open during Saturdays and holidays. Today is Wednesday and apparently not a holiday yet. Since no one was around to check if the office will still open, I rushed to the office beside COMELEC to inquire. Only to know the worst – the said office is closed since yesterday.

I believe that all our efforts in the Ayala Young Leaders Alliance and Youth Vote Philippines should by all means be given equal effort and commitment from the COMELEC. What is it for those young men and women behind the advocacy of promoting voters registration only to be given this inattention from the very institution which should be the prime mover of citizen participation in the electoral process? What is to be expected from our campaign of getting as many youth as possible to register if our target individuals will only encounter padlocked COMELEC office with no single personnel around especially during the very rare chances that they can spare time to exercise their duties as citizens?

Do not blame the youth for being so-called apathetic. Apathy is a result of outright incompetence of most of our public servants. Among the youth, most of us are doing our share. It’s just that more often than not, we do not receive the expected effectiveness from those in the bureaucracy.

Given the average turnout of registration, it will not be an astounding possibility to deprive hundreds of thousands if not millions of voters. The deadline for the registration is cut short from December 15 to October 31, 2009 in order to prepare for poll automation, as reported. Such directive poses the possibility of significantly decreasing the number of potential first time voters, unreasonable closing of COMELEC offices aggravates the saddening scenario.

In the 2007 senatorial elections, around 6.4 million potential voters were not registered. This number has significantly increased for the 2010 presidential elections.

We can recall the outcome of the past elections where the winners of national elective positions have a margin of less than a million.

Assuming without conceding that there were no (massive) cheating, imagine the difference that the votes of those who were unable to register could have affected the final tallies. Bottomline – the impact of the evident disregard of this very office to their mandate definitely affect the outcome of the elections and the impression of the public of the worth of exercising their rights and duties as citizens.

We appeal for immediate actions from the Commission on Elections. No more excuses please. We are all tired to hear the seemingly endless explanations trying to sew the loopholes in the systems the same commission are implementing. We are doing giving our contributions.

We, the public, deserve no less.

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Posted by Ralph Morales of Ayala Young Leaders; AYLA is part of the YouthVotePhilippines core group