It’s Election Day….In the Philippines!

May 10th as it is there – will be the first automated presidential elections. Voters are urged to resist the lure of guns, goons and gold.

Unlike Jenny Watson – the ineffective quango appointed Chairman of the UK Electoral Commission who waspishly pontificates about the voting chaos around the UK Election – Jose Melo, the Philippines Chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) must concern himself with over 50 million registered voters using computerised ballots which must be "shaded" next to a candidates name instead of writing them on a blank ballot paper.

This ballot is then scanned by the Precinct Count Optical Scanner (PCOS) which will compute the tally at the end of the voting day. There are over 76,000 precincts. Its expected that a high turnout is anticipated just because people are curious to see how the machines work.

There are almost 18,000 elective positions up for grabs, not to mention one for President, one for vice president and twelve senate seats.

Oddly enough, the company responsible for holding the first ever national computerised balloting is a Venezuelan firm called Smartmatic International who are being paid over £104m. Nice work! Thats two quid a vote or just over a dollar – which is the average daily income of two thirds of the electorate. Thats how things are worked out in the Philippines – its the price of rice!

Assuming there are no power cuts to prevent the machines from working, assuming that people can understand how to cast a vote, and assuming that many can be even be bothered to, the results may be in by midnight.

Watch this space….