Minor glitches in otherwise smooth polls

The Commonwealth Election Commission blamed the lack of funding for the glitches encountered during yesterday’s otherwise smoothly conducted election.

Some voters complained about the long lines, which resulted from limited polling places.

In Garapan Elementary School, for instance, some voters who came to the polling place in the morning had to wait in line for at least 30 minutes before they were allowed inside.

“If there’s more money, I would add polling places,” said CEC executive director Gregorio Sablan.

He explained that the commission’s funding level this year was the same as it was last year, when no election was held.

Since fiscal year 2003, the commission has had an annual non-personnel budget amounting to a little over $50,000.

Besides paying for CEC’s day-to-day operations, this amount was used this year to pay for the election workers’ compensation, ballot printing, side-support for the machines, the helicopter that brought the ballots to the Northern Islands, and the postage of absentee ballots, among other things.

“We got no additional funds to hold this election, not one cent. The chopper alone was $8,000, while the postage cost $4,000,” he said.

Meanwhile, one voter expressed anxiety about CEC’s new electoral procedure which stopped the use of ink stain as proof of voting.

She said people who have already voted could simply come back to the polling place and claim that the poll workers made a mistake in crossing out their name.

In previous elections, polling place supervisors were required to cross off the name of each voter on the list after the voter has received a ballot. In addition, each voter was required to have his or her right index finger marked with indelible ink to show that he or she has already voted.

But the Election Commission said there was no more need to use the ink stain during elections, as there were enough safeguards in place to ensure that no voter registers or casts a ballot more than once.

Voters, upon registration, are required to provide their Social Security number, date of birth, and a document bearing their full legal name to guarantee that no person registers twice or more.

This year’s election ballot also has a new design that organizes the names of candidates by position or office, as opposed to the current columnar format where names of candidates are listed according to political party.

The new ballot design was initiated to address the problem with “overvotes” —or voters picking more candidates than there are available slots in a particular office.

The new ballot design provides instructions informing voters of the number of offices to be filled in a particular position.