BY THEIR roots, you will know them.
Cebuanos know that the verb “mobotar” means “to vote.”
Yet not as many know that the word sounds nearly the same in three other languages.
In Buenaventura L. Montaño’s “Four-Language Derivational Dictionaries,” the Cebuano word has links to the Spanish (“votar,” an infinitive verb, means “to vote”) and Latin languages (the infinitive verb “vovere” stands for “to dedicate, to promise solemnly”).
Montaño’s research further yields these English cognates that imply the sacredness of voting as a vow and an action: “devote, devotedly, devotee, devotion, devotional, devout, devoutly, vote, voter, votive, votary and vow.”
On this day, when the coun-try’s future hangs in the balance, every citizen must see the paramount link between the act of electing leaders and the sacred duty of participating in and making democracy work.
Prepping up
Caught between the uncertainties posed by the country’s first automated election and the long and dark history of electoral fraud, cheating and violence, citizens can do their share of ensuring that efficiency, order and honesty reign in the polling precincts.
Go to the polls early. Delays and long lines are expected, but a citizen can help prevent these by being prepared.
Ideally, days before May 10, a citizen should know his or her clustered precinct and prepare a list of his or her candidates with their corresponding numbers.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) posted the relevant information on their website (www.comelec.gov.ph).
Due to the number of visitors now trying to view the site, the site loads very slowly, if at all. However, it will avoid confusion and delays if a citizen first checks the Comelec Online Precinct Finder for his or her assigned precinct, indirectly checking if he or she is still registered.
Those without access to the Internet or having connectivity problems can inquire about their clustered polling precinct with the election officer or election assistant at the Comelec office where they registered.
Dos and don’ts
Many citizens have yet to receive the voter information sheet (VIS) that the Comelec promised to mail by mid-April.
Resembling the official ballot minus the security features, the VIS would have provided the voter’s name, clustered precinct and polling place or school, as well as a list of national and local candidates. The VIS should have afforded voters a chance to prac-tice shading the ovals.
In place of the VIS, a Netizen can view, download and print sample ballots from the Comelec website. A prepared list of voting preferences, locally known as “codigo,” may be brought to the precinct to aid a voter in correctly and efficiently shading the ballot ovals.
Voters must know the full name and assigned number of the candidate or party list group to avoid erroneously voting for candidates with the same surname. Over-voting, or shading beyond the required number that is indicated in a particular category, will disqualify the vote or votes in the affected category.
A voter must carefully and completely shade the oval opposite the candidates’ name. Since the Comelec’s marker pen uses permanent ink, a voter cannot erase.
Overshading so that the ink seeps through to the other side will cause the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine to reject the ballot.
A voter must not fold or make unnecessary marks on the ballot, which may tamper with the security markings and invalidate the ballot.
Prohibited inside the polling precinct is using a digital camera or camera-enabled mobile phone to take a photograph of one’s filled-up ballot. Do not glance at another
voter’s ballot. Do not also show your ballot to anyone.
Keep your ballot in its folder, with only the topmost portion showing, ready for insertion into the PCOS machine.
A voter can approach the help desks of the accredited citizen’s arm, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and its partners, which will be stationed in all polling places nationwide on May 10.