What is PCOS?

What is PCOS?

By:  James Jimenez

As we move closer to the national and local elections of 2013, I will be writing an Automation Primer, a series of articles to explain various aspects of election automation.   



Last week I wrote about the technology that will be used to automate the elections next year.  Today, we look closely into what the term PCOS actually means.

ONE of the reasons given by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Advisory Council for its recommendation of optical mark reader (OMR) technology for 2013 was there was already a degree of public acceptance of the technology.  I couldn’t agree more.  In fact, “PCOS” and “PCOS Machine” have all but entered the common lexicon.  I even know someone who, because he worked closely with the 2010 automated elections, has given his son the nickname PCOS.

However, many people who use the term typically think it refers specifically to the device that they saw in the polling places in 2010.  This is wrong.

“PCOS” is merely a description of both the technology being used and where it is being utilized.  Thus, PCOS—an acronym that stands for Precinct Count Optical Scan—refers to a device, set up in a precinct that counts ballots via optical scanning technology.  

Compare this to elections prior to 2010 when automation solutions required ballots to be taken to a central counting location to be fed into the ballot-counting device.  Following the naming procedure applied to PCOS, that device would now be called a CCOS—a Central Count Optical Scan machine.

So, when the Comelec says PCOS will be used in 2013, this only means that we will be putting one optical mark reader counting machine in each voting precinct.  This does not necessarily mean, however, that we will be using the exact same devices we rolled out in 2010.

This means that the polling place procedures will essentially be the same.  In broad strokes: the voter has to present himself to the Boards of Election Inspectors; if the person is eligible to vote in that precinct, he will be given a ballot which he then must fill out.  Once filled out, the ballot is then inserted by the voter himself into the PCOS device.  Once scanned by the device, the ballot falls into the ballot box without need of any further action from the voter or the BEI.

The procedure is pretty straightforward.  However, it is from this same procedure that we can glean a number of areas of concern in connection with the implementation of a PCOS solution.  To provide just one example, consider the task of managing the flow of voters through the process.

In 2010 Boards of Election Inspectors were advised that they could have 10 to 15 people in the precinct, voting at the same time.  The idea was that as each voter completed his ballot, he would stand up and insert his ballot into the counting machine and leave the polling place while someone else would be ushered in as he leaves. In this way, the flow of voters would be more or less constant and congestion would be avoided.

In practice, however, many Boards insisted on moving voters to the counting machine in batches.  Instead of voters approaching the PCOS as they completed their ballots, they had to wait for everyone else in their batch of 10 to 15 voters to be ready, and only then would they insert their ballots, one after the other.  This was one of the major reasons for the congestion many polling places experienced in 2010.  A repeat of this problem—as well as the other snafus of the previous elections—in 2013 has to be avoided. 

Fortunately, the Comelec Steering Committee for automation—with Commissioner Elias R. Yusoph recently named as chairman—has been very much on the ball with this issue.

In the meantime, however, some very important upcoming events in the election calendar have to be spotlighted.

March 31, 2012, is the deadline for the filing of petitions for accreditation as a party-list organization.  With half of February already in the history books, people wanting to form party-list organizations better step up their game, especially since they will be required to file their manifestations of intent to participate much earlier than everyone expected: May 31, 2012.

In previous elections, manifestations of intent were filed by party-list organizations at the same time as individuals file their certificates of candidacy.  

This year, though, the two have been de-coupled to give the commission enough time to more thoroughly sift through the multitudes of party-list organizations and their nominees.  This will help ensure that only those party-list organizations—and nominees—that adhere to both the spirit and the letter of the party-list law are allowed to participate in that 2013 automated national and local elections.