The results of last Monday’s elections prove two of my points. First,the surveys are credible. Second, the best selection method for the kind of election process our country has is voting for the best among the winnables.
The ranking and percentage of the votes each candidate received from the partial tallies show that surveys are credible, contrary to the tail-ender candidates whined about and their rabid supporters echoed. If the surveys are incorrect, the results (both the ranking and percentage of votes) of the elections should be very different from the results of the surveys. Partial tallies have shown Erap placed at number 2 with about 25 percent of the votes. If surveys just cause trending, the percentage of votes of the front-runner should increase and be higher from the results of the surveys. If trending occurred, people will not vote for the number 2 candidate and instead vote for the front-runner in the surveys. No group of people will vote for the number 2 candidate (Erap) and limit their group’s count to be around 25 percent of the population.
In the kind of election process we have, the best selection method is voting for the best among the winnables. Supporters of losing candidates are now lamenting/complaining about the current front-runner’s looming presidency and they have been criticizing his every move. But they did not realize that their lamenting/complaining of the incoming president’s lack of achievements and skills is a luxury provided by the majority who are composed of people who are supporters of the incoming president and people who voted for the best among the winnables. If Erap is the one who is leading, probably they will be regretting that they did not vote for the current front-runner (Aquino). Anyway, I almost voted for either Gordon or Gibo since I was disenchanted with Aquino’s campaign (they cannot campaign without mentioning Aquino’s parents, his campaign rests solely in the legacies and names of his parents ). Moreover, Aquino’s allies in the local government units are the same old trapos (traditional politicians) who supported the outgoing administration. Gibo probably had the best campaign. However, he did not criticize his former boss (Arroyo). Gibo’s helplessness in criticizing the outgoing administration is probably a preview of how he will handle the cases that will be filed against Arroyo. I also dislike the personalities in Gibo’s ticket since they are not the people one will associate with progress (which is the main campaign promise of Gibo). Gibo also failed to connect with the poor. Gordon probably had good campaign platforms but what most people heard was his complaining about the surveys. I voted for Aquino to prevent an Erap win. (20100517 Update) Voting for the best only works for elections with multiple rounds or run-offs (e.g. voting for the best contestant in American Idol). Voting for the best (but has a low probability of winning) only allows the worst (but has a high probability of winning) to win.
I believe that all local politicians have vested interests especially since our country has a poor party system and most people vote for personalities and not for platforms. However, I am still hoping that Mar Roxas can still catch up against the lead of Binay. I still find Mar Roxas sliding to VP a rare class act though some see it before as a wise political decision (now they just see it as opportunism amidst his looming loss). Also, Binay’s last minute campaign streak that shows his ties/closeness to the Aquinos, Chiz Escudero’s childish endorsement and Binay’s allegations of cheating disgust me.
PS. People may disagree with the two points I presented above. Anyway, I think that almost all Filipino voters will agree with this observation - that however the election system has changed, local politicians will find ways and means to bastardize the system to gain advantage or increase their chances of winning. Examples include party list groups that do not really represent the marginalized, politicians changing their surnames, politicians teaming up with party list groups to go around the TV ads limit, etc.
(20100517 Update) I forgot to discuss black propaganda and mudslinging and their effect in the elections. A few months before the election day, the presidential race was effectively between Aquino and Villar while the vice presidential race was between Roxas and Legarda. Just a month or a few weeks before the election day, Erap, the then number 3, joined the other candidates in exposing the alleged corrupt practices of Villar. It was effective. The poor who supported Villar switched to Erap and made him number 2. It was the same for the vice-presidential race. The the former supporters of Legarda and some supporters of Aquino voted for Binay because of Binay's last minute campaign streak that involved the endorsement of Chiz Escudero and that showed his closeness to the Aquino camp. Anyway, it is just baffling that a last minute campaign streak can land politicians a six term. Another example of a successful last minute campaign was the overpriced Macapagal Boulevard ads by the incarcerated Trillanes won him a Senate seat last 2007 (they say these ads were funded by Sen. Madrigal; by the way, Sen. Trillanes used our barangay/subdivision as his residential address instead of his actual residential address in a probably more posh subdivision).
(20100520 The Hocus PCOS Update)
A week passed before losers in the national elections (who already conceded by the way) and losers in local elections started to cry cheating in the automated elections. Probably they polished their scripts, pieces of evidences or testimonies first before going out since the election process is new and the old padding-shaving techniques are probably not applicable to the automated system. Most of these national election losers garnered less than a hundred thousand votes, a number that is not even enough to get them elected in any major city while some of the local election losers are behind by hundred thousand votes from the proclaimed winners. Their losing margins cannot be attributed to the discrepancies found in the verification processes. Hence, another election belief was not debunked by the automated elections, i.e. there are no winners nor losers in Philippine election, only those who cheated and those who got cheated. The photo-finish implementation of the automated elections by Smartmatic and Comelec did not help their cause in ensuring the public that cheating is improbable. First is the problem in the CF cards not being programmed correctly to read the double-space formatting for the local elections side of the ballot. Now, the transmission times of PCOS machines are being questioned. Smartmatic said that the earlier or later than May 10 transmission times can be attributed to the wrong clock settings of the PCOS machines. This explanation is realistic/probable/believable. However, this problem could have been avoided if Smartmatic performed the proper checks for their PCOS machines. If such checks were made and efficient logistics plan were employed (thus ridding off the scenario that a technician needed to secure the PCOS machines in his house ), there will be less ammunition available to losing candidates to allege cheating. Losing candidates will only be left with the testimony of the Koala Bear. All the election issues cannot be blamed to Smartmatic alone. Comelec has continuously shown their lack of oversight. One example is the foreseen problem of long queues during elections brought about by the clustering of precincts and retaining the number of BEIs. Each clustered precinct subsumes more than 3 precincts but the BEIs assigned to each clustered precinct were not increased correspondingly (only 3 BEIs served for each clustered precinct, in the former system, 3 BEIs served for a precinct). This foreseen problem had been brought up by experts long before the elections. However, Comelec did not devise means to ease long lines. Recently, Comelec has scheduled the special elections in areas where there are failure of elections on May 28 which falls on a Friday. However, some of these areas have significant Muslim population who consider Friday as a worship day. It’s like making Sunday an election day for Catholics.
Among the discrepancies found from the verification/audit processes, the discrepancy between thre transmitted results and printed results is the most disturbing. I can’t figure how can a machine transmit and print different results if it’s reading from the same memory location and transmitting using a standard protocol.
The ranking and percentage of the votes each candidate received from the partial tallies show that surveys are credible, contrary to the tail-ender candidates whined about and their rabid supporters echoed. If the surveys are incorrect, the results (both the ranking and percentage of votes) of the elections should be very different from the results of the surveys. Partial tallies have shown Erap placed at number 2 with about 25 percent of the votes. If surveys just cause trending, the percentage of votes of the front-runner should increase and be higher from the results of the surveys. If trending occurred, people will not vote for the number 2 candidate and instead vote for the front-runner in the surveys. No group of people will vote for the number 2 candidate (Erap) and limit their group’s count to be around 25 percent of the population.
In the kind of election process we have, the best selection method is voting for the best among the winnables. Supporters of losing candidates are now lamenting/complaining about the current front-runner’s looming presidency and they have been criticizing his every move. But they did not realize that their lamenting/complaining of the incoming president’s lack of achievements and skills is a luxury provided by the majority who are composed of people who are supporters of the incoming president and people who voted for the best among the winnables. If Erap is the one who is leading, probably they will be regretting that they did not vote for the current front-runner (Aquino). Anyway, I almost voted for either Gordon or Gibo since I was disenchanted with Aquino’s campaign (they cannot campaign without mentioning Aquino’s parents, his campaign rests solely in the legacies and names of his parents ). Moreover, Aquino’s allies in the local government units are the same old trapos (traditional politicians) who supported the outgoing administration. Gibo probably had the best campaign. However, he did not criticize his former boss (Arroyo). Gibo’s helplessness in criticizing the outgoing administration is probably a preview of how he will handle the cases that will be filed against Arroyo. I also dislike the personalities in Gibo’s ticket since they are not the people one will associate with progress (which is the main campaign promise of Gibo). Gibo also failed to connect with the poor. Gordon probably had good campaign platforms but what most people heard was his complaining about the surveys. I voted for Aquino to prevent an Erap win. (20100517 Update) Voting for the best only works for elections with multiple rounds or run-offs (e.g. voting for the best contestant in American Idol). Voting for the best (but has a low probability of winning) only allows the worst (but has a high probability of winning) to win.
I believe that all local politicians have vested interests especially since our country has a poor party system and most people vote for personalities and not for platforms. However, I am still hoping that Mar Roxas can still catch up against the lead of Binay. I still find Mar Roxas sliding to VP a rare class act though some see it before as a wise political decision (now they just see it as opportunism amidst his looming loss). Also, Binay’s last minute campaign streak that shows his ties/closeness to the Aquinos, Chiz Escudero’s childish endorsement and Binay’s allegations of cheating disgust me.
PS. People may disagree with the two points I presented above. Anyway, I think that almost all Filipino voters will agree with this observation - that however the election system has changed, local politicians will find ways and means to bastardize the system to gain advantage or increase their chances of winning. Examples include party list groups that do not really represent the marginalized, politicians changing their surnames, politicians teaming up with party list groups to go around the TV ads limit, etc.
(20100517 Update) I forgot to discuss black propaganda and mudslinging and their effect in the elections. A few months before the election day, the presidential race was effectively between Aquino and Villar while the vice presidential race was between Roxas and Legarda. Just a month or a few weeks before the election day, Erap, the then number 3, joined the other candidates in exposing the alleged corrupt practices of Villar. It was effective. The poor who supported Villar switched to Erap and made him number 2. It was the same for the vice-presidential race. The the former supporters of Legarda and some supporters of Aquino voted for Binay because of Binay's last minute campaign streak that involved the endorsement of Chiz Escudero and that showed his closeness to the Aquino camp. Anyway, it is just baffling that a last minute campaign streak can land politicians a six term. Another example of a successful last minute campaign was the overpriced Macapagal Boulevard ads by the incarcerated Trillanes won him a Senate seat last 2007 (they say these ads were funded by Sen. Madrigal; by the way, Sen. Trillanes used our barangay/subdivision as his residential address instead of his actual residential address in a probably more posh subdivision).
(20100520 The Hocus PCOS Update)
A week passed before losers in the national elections (who already conceded by the way) and losers in local elections started to cry cheating in the automated elections. Probably they polished their scripts, pieces of evidences or testimonies first before going out since the election process is new and the old padding-shaving techniques are probably not applicable to the automated system. Most of these national election losers garnered less than a hundred thousand votes, a number that is not even enough to get them elected in any major city while some of the local election losers are behind by hundred thousand votes from the proclaimed winners. Their losing margins cannot be attributed to the discrepancies found in the verification processes. Hence, another election belief was not debunked by the automated elections, i.e. there are no winners nor losers in Philippine election, only those who cheated and those who got cheated. The photo-finish implementation of the automated elections by Smartmatic and Comelec did not help their cause in ensuring the public that cheating is improbable. First is the problem in the CF cards not being programmed correctly to read the double-space formatting for the local elections side of the ballot. Now, the transmission times of PCOS machines are being questioned. Smartmatic said that the earlier or later than May 10 transmission times can be attributed to the wrong clock settings of the PCOS machines. This explanation is realistic/probable/believable. However, this problem could have been avoided if Smartmatic performed the proper checks for their PCOS machines. If such checks were made and efficient logistics plan were employed (thus ridding off the scenario that a technician needed to secure the PCOS machines in his house ), there will be less ammunition available to losing candidates to allege cheating. Losing candidates will only be left with the testimony of the Koala Bear. All the election issues cannot be blamed to Smartmatic alone. Comelec has continuously shown their lack of oversight. One example is the foreseen problem of long queues during elections brought about by the clustering of precincts and retaining the number of BEIs. Each clustered precinct subsumes more than 3 precincts but the BEIs assigned to each clustered precinct were not increased correspondingly (only 3 BEIs served for each clustered precinct, in the former system, 3 BEIs served for a precinct). This foreseen problem had been brought up by experts long before the elections. However, Comelec did not devise means to ease long lines. Recently, Comelec has scheduled the special elections in areas where there are failure of elections on May 28 which falls on a Friday. However, some of these areas have significant Muslim population who consider Friday as a worship day. It’s like making Sunday an election day for Catholics.
Among the discrepancies found from the verification/audit processes, the discrepancy between thre transmitted results and printed results is the most disturbing. I can’t figure how can a machine transmit and print different results if it’s reading from the same memory location and transmitting using a standard protocol.
4 comments:
about the winnable thing: this is also why, fewer choices is better (ex. bipartite). Let's improve the system of getting there and representing the only two parties. Then, all this winnable issues will be gone. People will just choose the better one. BUT... of course, this would require us to have a very effective party system / platform system.
or multiple rounds of elections, I think our country does not need to go back to the days with only two parties (Nacionalista and Liberal) since the two parties might not represent either liberalism or conservatism but only a flavor of Catholic conservatism
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