5/10/2010

Next Time, How About Logically Clustering The Prencincts?

.
The clustering of the precincts proved to be a major cause of the system's poor overall efficiency. Since one big cluster comprises about 8 to 10 precincts or about 700 to 1,000 voters, one standard-sized public school classroom with one set of election workers and other authorized personnel are 8 to 10 times over-capacitated or overloaded, and thus resulted the inefficiency of the AES that is being experienced today by the voters all over the country.

The previously published time and motion test conducted by the concerned authorities involved in the AES project estimated the time it will take for a voter to finish voting to be between 8 to 10 minutes. But the actual real time proved to be longer than ten minutes. This is where the system's bottleneck occurs.

In the entire election day, the PCOS machine only uses a very small fraction of the entire election time to read all the ballots in a particular cluster of precincts. Most of the time it is sitting idle waiting for a batch of voters to finish shading their ballots. This setup has a very low rate of system throughput of about 30 to 40 voters per hour per one cluster of precincts. If the system throughput rate can be increased 5 to 8 times, the system's overall efficiency could greatly improve.

One possible solution is "Logical Clustering". That is, using the same original precincts configuration in the polling places as it was in the manual elections before. The variation to this configuration is that the precincts are clustered logically in such a way that they share one PCOS machine for every group of 8 to 10 precincts as clustered today. In this setup, every precinct has the original set of election workers and authorized personnel as in the manual elections before. But in this setup, voters (of not more than say 400 voters per precinct) do the very time-consuming manual steps or portions of the AES (including the shading of the ballot) in their uncongested precinct space (one classroom per precinct) and under the care and supervision of the not overloaded set of election workers. The PCOS machine is place in a secured common area managed and guarded by a special set of authorized election workers.

So, in a logical cluster of 8 to 10 precincts, the number of voters finishing the shading of their ballots in one hour is increased 8 to 10 times. In this case, one logical cluster of say a total number of 1,000 voters would only take about 3 to 4 hours to finish voting.

Sample Calculation:

Say;

20 minutes = voting time per voter
1 batch = 10 voters

And say;

1 logical cluster = 8 precincts

So roughly;

Every 20 minutes, 8 precincts will yeild a total of 80 voters who finish voting

Therefore:

1,000 voters / (80 voters every 20 minutes) = 250 minutes (or about 4 hours)
.

A Glimpse At A Local Voting Center

.


























5/09/2010

My Personal Choice of National Leaders for 2010 Elections

.
President: Aquino, Benigno III
Vice-president : Roxas, Mar

Senators:

* Tamano, Adel (Nacionalista Party)
* Estrada, Jinggoy (Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino)
* Biazon, Ruffy (Liberal Party)
* Drilon, Frank (Liberal Party)
* Recto, Ralph (Liberal Party)
* Ocampo, Satur (Bayan Muna)
* Baraquel, Ana Theresa (Liberal Party)
* Enrile, Juan Ponce (Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino)
* De Venecia, Joey (Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino)
* OsmeƱa, Sergio III (Independent)
* Defensor-Santiago, Miriam (People's Reform Party)
* Tatad, Francisco (Grand Alliance for Democracy)

Party List: BUHAY
.

5 Madaling Hakbang sa Makabagong Paraan ng Pagboto

.

.

Magtulong-tulong Tayo Upang Maiwasan Ang "Overvoting"

.


Dahil sa uri ng ating Automated Election System (AES) na gumagamit ng mahabang balota kung saan nakasulat ang mga pangalan ng lahat ng mga kandidato sa iba't-ibang posisyon, napakadali ng isang botante na magkamaling sumubra ang pagboto.

Halimbawa sa pagboto ng senador, imbis na 12 lamang ang dapat piliin, dahil napakarami ang pangalan na nakasulat sa balota para senador, napakadali ng isang first-time AES voter na magkamali at makapili ng lampas 12 kandidato.

Sa local level naman, lalong mas madaling magkamali ang isang botante dahil karamihan sa kanila ay hindi alam kung ilang bilang ng konsehal ang dapat iboto sa kanilang partikular na lugar. Sinubokan ko ang aking mga kamag-anak at kaibigan sa pagboto. Sa mahigit sampong bomoto, dalawa lamang sa kanila ang hindi nag-overvote, tatlo ang nag-undervote. Kayo mismo, subokan ninyong bomoto gamit ang sample ballot para sa inyong lugar, malamang mag-overvote din kayo.

Habang may kaunting oras pa, kailangan sigurong paulit-ulit itong ipapa-alala ng mga taga-medya sa taong bayan. Serbisyo publiko nila sa kanilang mga hintilan sa telebisyon simula ngayong oras na ito hanggang bukas ng eleksyon. At sa mga voting precincts kailangan paulit-ulit din ipa-alala ng mga kinaukulan at mga volunteers ang tungkol sa bagay na ito.
Napakahalagang malaman ng taombayan ang tungkol sa over-voting dahil napakadali para sa mga first-time voters ng AES na magkamali dahil sa uri ng ating bagong sistema na napakahaba ng balota at napakarami ng mga pangalan na nakasulat.