Millan: Cure the wounded finger

HISTORY was written when our country conducted the first ever automated elections.

Some quarters quickly judged it to have miserably failed. Some quarters recognized that there were some mistakes and several shortcomings but it was still generally successful especially when compared to the ancient manual method.

Post your reaction to the Manila hostage crisis

The former can be tolerated, but it cannot in any way cause the scrapping of the new system. The latter should be embraced, as flaws and imperfections are but normal in any new system.

A long list of complaints and grievances was heaved and hurled and still continue to be pitched and tossed. They range from the highly technical to the grossly irrational. The highly technical, and the other sensible comments and suggestions, should be addressed immediately. The grossly irrational, and the other senseless tirades and diatribes, should be dismissed instantly. Some facts, though, cannot be ignored.

On the day of the automated election, people came out in droves and herds to exercise their right of suffrage. Teachers and others deputized to handle the automated election faced dramatically less risks to life and limb. Military and police personnel deputized to ensure the peace and guarantee the order encountered considerably less threats and hazards.

On the eve of the automated election, just a few hours after the polls closed, results from many areas nationwide were quickly transmitted and were known to the public. At least for the national level, the initial trend never changed throughout the canvassing and until proclamation. The people already knew who won and who lost, unlike before which took weeks and even months.

After the canvassing and the proclamation, radically less cases of cheating and other election offenses were filed. It was not zero but it was also not hundreds, unlike before when cases were filed left and right because nobody really admitted to have lost, only that they were cheated.

After the random manual audit, drastically less instances of discrepancies and inconsistencies were noted and observed. There were some minor disparities but they were nothing substantial so as to come close to affecting the results of the election.

There are so many other examples of the positive changes that came along with the automated elections. But the long and short of it all is that the automated election was, without a doubt, so much better than the ancient manual method.

It is for this reason, then, that all the griping and all the grumbling must stop and cease.

Instead of whining about the negative points of the new system, we must celebrate the success of the positive ones. To be sure, there is a lot of room for accolades. Instead of pushing for the abolition of the new system, we must focus and concentrate on how we can enhance it. To be sure, there is a lot of room for improvement.

In the final analysis, the automated election has faults and failures. But at the end of the day, these inadequacies and insufficiencies ought to be fixed, not be the reason to entirely eradicate and eliminate the new system.

We should not cut off the whole hand. We should just cure the wounded finger. Comments are most welcome. Please send them to onesmallvoice2010@gmail.com.