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Researchers' Notes

APRIL 29 UNTV SIMULATION REPORT (A partial report)
By the EU-Cenpeg Project 30-30 Research Team and Volunteers
April 29, 2010, 3 p.m.

  1. BEIs not trained on the Revised General Instructions for BEIs. Ex. They were not able to answer question on what they will do if precincts ran out of ballots
  2. Ambiguous marking – Voter accidentally put a dot on an oval and ballot was rejected. BEI resolved this by instructing the voter to fully shade the oval even if another vote was already casted on that position. BEI explained - “Better to overvote and not have your vote be counted on a particular position than have your ballot rejected”
  3. 3 BEIs manning the registration desk, 2 manning the PCOS machine, and 1 serving as the assistor. On actual Election Day, only three BEIs are assigned per precinct. And despite extra BEIs, they still had difficulty performing their duties.
  4. Time and Motion Study – 50 average number of voters per hour
  5. No UV lamps and use of lamps and familiarity of BEIs in operating UV lamp not tested
  6. Average duration of waiting time from outside the voting center to the precinct for first batch of voters took 2-3 hrs. One voter was agitated because of the long waiting line under the heat of the sun outside the voting center.
  7. List not alphabetical; confusion with names, surnames sometimes listed first
  8. Small font/letters in ballots – senior citizens had no idea font was small and was not accompanied by an assistor; had a hard time filling out the ballots. One voter shaded three candidates for the president position.
  9. A voter used a felt tip pen with too much ink which unintentionally created to a hole in the ballot.
  10. A senior citizen did not know how many votes should be cast per candidate
  11. No Comelec officials overseeing simulation. Only James Jimenez showed up on the first hour of voting
  12. 10 registered voters’ names not on the list and were not able to vote
  13. First batch of voters used ordinary ballpens, but ballots were still accepted
  14. There were two instances wherein ballots were invalidated because ballot was smudged because the felt tip pen ink overflowed, and there was a problem with the barcode of another ballot which was not printed properly. Both voters were not able to vote.
  15. A 16-year-old whose name was on the voters’ list prepared by UNTV but had no ID was able to vote
  16. PCOS machine was powered by batteries to test battery reliability, but batteries bogged down twice. Unconfirmed reasons could be battery problem or machine not sufficiently tested. BEIs had to reboot and re-enter their PINs twice. No proper crowd control during this incident. Anyone was able to come near the machine.
  17. Security protocols not properly observed. PINs announced to observers and voters by BEIs
  18. A senior citizen took 23 minutes from entering precinct to getting indelible ink
  19. Wrong precinct layout – PCOS machine far from registration table and near door, making it possible for a voter with intentions to cheat to exit the door upon feeding his/her ballot on the machine without getting indelible ink and return to vote for the second time.
  20. Voter was able to vote even if name was not on the voters list and s/he did not have an ID. BEIs explained that they allowed voter to vote because s/he was already filling out the ballot anyway.
  21. Weak cellphone connectivity

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