Various doomsday predictions were quickly proven wrong at the close of the elections on May 10, 2010 when results started pouring into COMELEC and PPRCV servers.  The swift counting due to the implementation of the PCOS machines and other technologies employed by COMELEC and Smartmatic gave no time at all for dagdag-bawas operations which would have been quite easy to do in the previous elections.

The random manual audit (RMA) also has shown no significant variations from the PCOS counts.  Only one more unofficial check remains:  To review if the precincts included in the RMA are not significantly different compared to those not audited.  So far though, the election results are looking credible and the PCOS machines proved to be accurate in the counting.

The country was given positive feedback by foreign observers and the US and UK congratulated us for the successful elections.

However, even with the successful automation of the ballot counting, the clustered precincts suffered long lines and delays because the queue of voters was not managed well.  Each set of BEIs had different methods of managing the queue.  The fastest moving queues where those given priority numbers from 1 to about 1000.  The slowest were those processed in batch of 10s or 20s.  The queue management was dismal in most precincts.

We hope that in the next election, priority numbers should be part of the election materials to be distributed by COMELEC.  This is a low tech solution for a low tech problem.  Also, a holding room beside the precinct would be good also because it allows the voters who are about to enter the precincts to relax and prepare themselves to vote.  Priority numbers would help avoid the long lines because it allows some voters to decide whether to go home and come back later or stay on.

The election results were also published online on www.ibanangayon.ph and allowed anybody with Internet access to review the results.  Such transparency was made possible by the technologies employed by Smartmatic and this should be a lesson for government agencies and LGUs:  transparency really removes concerns of cheating and corruption and gives credibility to government activities like elections, purchases and others.