Malayang Halalan

Smartmatic wins UN contract for Voter Registration in Africa

If it’s good for the United Nations, it ought to be good for the Philippines.
After all criticism thrown at Smartmatic and Smarmatic-TIM, its international reputation doesn’t seem to be suffering one bit.  Other countries continue to trust the company whose aim is to provide “technology for all”.
In this latest bit of news, the Republic of [...]

Defensor welcomes Pulse Asia’s denial of survey showing Herbert Bautista leading in QC Mayoralty race

Defensor said he was glad that Pulse Asia president Ronald Homes personally denied that the firm conducted and released the survey.

“I myself was doubtful on the results of the survey because I don’t believe that my comedian rival is leading,” Defensor said.

Defensor said that based on the January 15 to 30, 2010 survey commissioned by the city’s Morato Business Group, he was leading Bautista by as much as 7 percent.

Voting in May 2010 will be fun and easy

Bathsheba Valenzuela considers herself an expert on automated voting and scoffs at people who say that using the 25-inch-long ballot and the voting machine is fraught with difficulties for senior citizens.

“It’s easy as long as you follow the instructions. I’m 58, yes, but why would it be difficult for me?” she said after participating in a mock election conducted by GMA News at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

Should you vote for a partylist organization?

These days, there are partylist organizations that have been organized, funded, and are being run by big businessmen, the political elite, religious organizations and others. They do this for more or less the same reason that a big businessman, political elite or religious leader runs for a local position — to protect and promote their personal interests.

This leads to the question, “Has the partylist system become BIG BUSINESS?”

If at all Ms. Glenda Gloria is interested in doing some justice, shouldn’t she come up with a list of partylist organizations which name the people behind them?

Are Pulse Asia and SWS surveys objective?

In his book, The Opinion Makers, Moore makes the startling conclusion that pollsters “do not measure public opinion, they manufacture it.” He anchors this contention on the practice of polling firms to gloss over “voter indecision” during an election campaign. Moore notes:

Moore points out: “There is crisis in public-opinion polling today, a silent crisis that no one wants to talk about. The problem lies not in the declining response rates and increasing difficulty in obtaining representative sample, though these are issues the polling industry has to address. The problem lies, rather, in the refusal of media polls to tell the truth about those surveyed and about the larger electorate. Rather than tell us the essential facts about the public, they feed us a fairy-tale picture of a completely rational, all-knowing and fully engaged citizenry. They studiously avoid reporting on widespread public apathy, indecision and ignorance. The net result is conflicting poll results and a distortion of public opinion that challenges the credibility of the whole polling enterprise. Nowhere is this more often the case than in election polling.”