Lawmaker eyes fully automated barangay, youth polls; Comelec says pilot testing possible

A lawmaker on Thursday sought a congressional inquiry into the feasibility of conducting fully automated barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BKSE).

Dasmariñas City Lone District Representative Elpidio Barzaga, Jr. made the call in his House Resolution 717, tasking the House suffrage and electoral reforms committee to conduct the inquiry.

“[Automating] it will not only yield faster results and proclamation of winners but also prevent human intervention or error and confusion in the appreciation of the ballot,” Barzaga said in a statement.

For starters, he added, the pilot conduct of automated BSKE polls can be conducted in barangays in Metro Manila where the concentration of registered voters are.

"Automated elections have proven to be economical as it can accommodate up to more than 1,000 voters per clustered precinct as opposed to the 500 voters per precinct in manual elections which entails hiring more personnel in manual elections," Barzaga said in his Resolution.

President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. last October signed Republic Act No. 11935, postponing the December 5, 2022 barangay and youth polls to October 30, 2023 and holding succeeding elections every three years thereafter.

Based on government records, there are at least 42,022 barangays in the country, each of which has one Punong Barangay and seven Sangguniang Barangay members, one SK chairperson and seven members.

“Since there will be two ballots for the Barangay and SK elections which are one for regular voters aged 18 and above and another one for SK voters aged 15 up to 30, the existing Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) can be refurbished and modified to accept two ballots from a single voter who qualifies to vote in both Barangay and SK elections and the machines can tabulate separately the results of the Barangay and SK elections,” Barzaga said.

Barzaga also said Filipinos are already adept with automated polls since the country has been conducting fully automated presidential and midterm elections since 2010.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia welcomed Barzaga’s suggestion but clarified that full automation is already out of the question at this point.

“To fully automate is unlikely at this point. We are halfway through the printing of ballots for the conduct of manual elections,” Garcia said in a separate statement.

“This is indeed an innovative idea. We will study if we can at least pilot test in certain areas/precincts the automation of the Barangay and SK elections,” Garcia added. — BM, GMA Integrated News