Modernization of democracy: an assessment of the 2013 Philippine automated elections on the Filipino’s right to suffrage

Abstract

This assessment addresses the political role of the automated election system or AES in promoting the exercise of the right to suffrage in the Philippines. Understanding from Rational Choice Institutionalism as framework, it focuses on the perception and experiences of the voters from two subdivisions in Mambog IV, Bacoor City, Cavite namely, Greenpoint Homes Subdivision and Richfiled (Hauskon) Subdivision. Discussions contend that the favorable stance of the voters towards the automated election system legitimizes the process and its results, consequently validating its continuous implementation in the succeeding elections. From this discourse, Perrow’s Natural Accident Theory (NAT) and High-reliability Organization Theory (HRO), under the Systems Theory, strengthens current conceptions by appealing to the causes of the system failures categorizing them as natural occurring incidents and as problems with distributed or varied outcomes. However, such operations were necessary to point out the people’s yardstick for concurring to the AES. Furthermore, data proves and recommends the requisites for improving and increasing voter’s education to enhance their low level of awareness about the system.