In the past, votes were manually counted, written, or marked by voters on paper.
But now, voting methods have evolved alongside the rise of technology.
In fact, during the 2010 national elections, the Philippines used an automated election system for the first time.
Here, votes were read and counted by a machine.
However, before this, pilot testing had already been conducted in ARMM during the 1996 elections.
The machine used back then, called Operation Modex, was sourced from the United States.
In this system, voters would mark the circle next to the name of their chosen candidate.
Afterward, the ballot would be fed into the machine.
The machine, equipped with Optical Mark Recognition, could read and tally votes from computerized ballots.
Then in 1997, RA 8436 was passed, allowing the use of a new automated system for the May 1998 local and national elections, but only in Mindanao.
At the time, the government didnโt have the budget to implement it nationwide.
COMELEC also carefully studied the machines due to several incidents of malfunction.
After their research, since 2013, automated elections have been implemented for local and national elections across the country.
However, barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections remain manual to this day.
**Valerie Ann Dismaya
