Election Day

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I helped out with the elections as a PPCRV volunteer today at the Voter's Assistance Desk together with my friends from school. At the beginning of my day I couldn't help but feel excited, because even though I knew it was going to be a battlefield in the COC polling center we were helping out in, our job sounded pretty simple and doable, and consisted of only five steps.
  1. Ask voter for name.
  2. Type name in computer.
  3. Look at voter's precinct number.
  4. Write precinct number, room, and floor number on paper.
  5. Smile and give to voter :)

Buuuut of course things were easier said than done. Instead of people patiently lining up in an orderly fashion like the civilized human beings they're supposed to be, everyone was just in a frenzy, going behind the tables and pressing close to us and pestering us to hurry up and breathing over our shoulders with breath that smelled of cigarettes.

To put things into perspective: I wasn't expecting the South Korean military, but I wasn't expecting Armageddon either.

. . .

What made me really sad was when we couldn't locate a voter's name in the database - and let me tell you, that happened a LOT. In the morning, it was like two out of five voters weren't listed in the Voters List. Whenever that happened, we had to tell the voter to go up to the second floor and talk to the COMELEC.

That news was never received without more than a little anger. See, to get up to the COMELEC or even the precincts on the second floor, you had to go to the back of this line that stretched all the way from the fourth floor to the first floor. And often, the COMELEC was no help. They just told the voters that they needed to speak to the Assistance Desk - us!

And what could we do about it? Nothing, really! We couldn't wave our wands and snap our fingers and make these people's names appear in an instant.

Many people got so discouraged by this that they ended up going home and NOT voting!

Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This is making me really mad now. I mean, these good people came all the way and waited for so long only to find their NAMES WERE NOT ON A LIST?! Good people who wanted to have a say in deciding our next president, in our new democracy not being able to use their precious and sacred votes - all because of a leak in the COMELEC system!

Argh! This is so frustrating.

And you know what's even MORE frustrating?

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BINAY'S LEADING IN THE RESULTS!!!

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