Information and Communication Technology and election administration in the Philippines: an assessment of the nationwide automation of the 2010 and 2013 synchronized elections

Abstract

This article makes an assessment of the nationwide automation of the 2010 and 2013 synchronized elections in the Philippines from a viewpoint of election administration. It first reviews the traditional manual system of pre-automation, identifies its problems regarding fraud and inefficiency, and traces the historical process of introducing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into election administration in the country. On the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data obtained from election and other statistics, various published and unpublished materials, interviews and field visits, the article then examines the 2010 and 2013 election automation in its four phases, namely, (1) voter registration, (2) voting, (3) tallying, and (4) data consolidation, and makes an assessment in terms of three frames of reference, namely, (1) voting right protection, (2) fraud prevention, and (3) administrative rationality which includes accuracy, efficiency, and economy. Finally, the article argues that, although it had many problems, the automation as implemented in the two sets of elections should be considered a success in the sense that it managed elections much better than the previous manual system.

Psychological Peculiarities of Styles of Professional Activity and the Level of Stress among Members of Election Commissions in Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine

“…We agree with the findings of the researchers that one of the ways to improve the electoral process is its technical improvement and automation (Elklit, 1999;Garrett & Jensen, 2011;Kimura, 2015). This will reduce the risk of election manipulation and corruption of officials, the "strategic rejection of falsified" ballots and their incorrect counting, in general, as much as possible limit the influence of the human factor on the electoral process and election results (Friesen, 2019;McAllister & White, 2015).…”