Notes on poll watching

 I still haven’t seen the news. (I’m out in the sticks without internet; Noel is getting these posts third hand, in a process involving scrawled missives, motorcycles, and carrier pigeons.) But here are some observations on the poll watching and interviews around Santa Cruz.

Long lines. One booth had a voting machine breakdown for 3 hours, others were just plain backed up. But people were waiting up to 5 hours to vote. The election has the flavor of a festival, with people hanging around long after they’ve voted to meet extended family.  So people just take whatever time they need to complete this most important of political rituals. I.e., I don’t think turnout was much deterred by the long lines.

Lots of flagrant rule breaking. Like party workers (called poll watchers) in the voting area, helping people fill out their ballots and enforcing the 3-kg of rice/100 pesos-per-vote contracts that are a guilty secret for many people here. The local police vests had a candidate’s name “Dockie” printed on it, who also happens to be the vest supplier. Also, many people missing from the rolls, finding that they had “already voted” or unable to find their name (and finding the names of long dead relatives) on the voting lists.

Nonetheless, overall impressions of the election were optimistic. This turned to frustration over the course of the day as the lines and crowded rooms took their toll. At the end of the day, two out of five machines in my precinct failed to electronically transmit their votes; the chips were sent to the municipal canvassing office. 

While our small group, by the nature of our task, is hyper sensitive and paranoid about possible electoral chicanery, I think this is as good as it gets in rural underdeveloped countries. The bubblesheets were certainly an improvement over the old Senate ballots, which involved writing in the names (or nicknames) of the preferred twelve candidates, with all the room for fraud that implies. The local canvasser told another group member that this was the best election he’s seen in 35 years.