Problems with ballot machines yesterday kept some Filipino voters waiting for hours, including the presidential frontrunner, and may have lowered turnout, but there was no sign of widespread failure that would derail the elections.
Officials had expected turnout as high as 85 percent, but analysts and election monitors said the actual figure could be much lower as many had given up and gone home without voting.
With widespread technical failure and serious violence not materializing, the main risks now would be a very low turnout figure, or problems with the transmission and collation of results, expected to start yesterday evening.
PHOTO: EPA
“Many of the problems experienced thus far were expected, but major voter frustration and disenfranchisement could result in lower than expected turnout, and compromise election results,” consultancy Pacific Strategies & Assessments said.
Challenges and unrest are also a risk if the clear frontrunner in opinion polls, Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, does not win the race to succeed Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Opinion polls suggest Aquino will be the next president. He had a 20-point lead over former president Joseph Estrada and Senator Manny Villar, with Gilberto Teodoro, candidate of the outgoing administration, a distant fourth.
In a country where some degree of violence and chaos is regarded as normal during elections, most voters took technical hitches in their stride and waited patiently for their turn.
“I prayed for a peaceful election, so our country can move forward. People are sick and tired of the cheating and fraud in the past elections,” 57-year-old voter Danilo Arriola said.
The use of a new and untested automated voting system posed a major risk for the election and concerns rose following the recall of more than 76,000 memory chips after a fault was found.
While the glitches caused the election commission to extend voting by an hour to 7pm, they did not appear widespread or serious enough to fatally undermine the polls. Even after 7pm, voters who had been within 30m of a polling station were allowed to vote.
The military reported 37 incidents of election day violence, with at least nine dead and 12 wounded, including a gunfight in Maguindanao, where 57 people died in an election-related massacre in November last year.
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