KC launches poll automation info drive

CABANATUAN CITY - Saying voting electronically is an easy but delicate job, the Catholic-based organization Knights of Columbus is waving an all-out educational drive for voters.

Armando Galang, Grand Knight of the KofC Padre Crisostomo Council 6000 in this city, said Thursday that all councils of the Order are asked to conduct the campaign after information technology experts from its Manila office held a briefing among members in the countryside recently.

"It is the patriotic duty of every knight to help our voters know the voting process so that their rights will go to waste" Galang said.

Ronnie Infante, an IT expert, said that while automation will definitely make the exercise of the right to suffrage of every Filipino easier and fast, voters' education is in urgent necessity owing to the unfamiliarity of most people on the system.

Among the possible errors voters can commit is over-voting, according to Infante. Over voting, he said, happens when a voter shades circles or oval opposite of the candidates' name more than the number of required position. Thus, a voter who shaded 13 or more circles for senators will find all his or her votes for the senators, including the 12 he actually meant to vote, invalid.

There could be no problem, however, if the voter will blacken circles less than than twelve in the field.

Gary San Sebastian, meanwhile, said that besides actual voting process and the automated counting, elections almost look the same as the previous set. "There will still be lawyers, watchers and other parties concerned," he said. Protest could even be possible, he said.

They stressed four specific actions a voter should do to vote: These are: early check of their names in the voters' list, present to the board of election inspectors valid identification card, shade the circles opposite of the candidates he or she elects on the ballot and put the ballot correctly in the machine which serves as ballot box.

Illiterate citizens can still ask assistance from their relatives, as allowed in the previous elections.

The KofC officers underscored the need for everyone to deliver information to others.

All of its councils nationwide are enjoined to conduct the voters' forum even to smallest units of society such their own families, San Sebastian added.