The Pre and Post Level of Knowledge of the First Automated Election of the Voters in Barangay Alae, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon

The paper is a timely and relevant study about the first Automated Election that took place in the Philippines last May 10, 2010 election. It sought to analyze the voters’ level of knowledge about the Automated Election, parts of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine that was used in the election, and the steps in voting before and after they actually experienced the new electoral system. It tried to determine whether age, educational attainment, and media exposure influence the knowledge of the selected voters in Alae, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon about the new system. A descriptive research was used for the study. Data were collected using researcherprepared questionnaire, and informal interviews. With the help of T-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The study discovered that the voter-respondents were mostly young to middle aged individuals, relatively well educated, not too exposed to media information about the Automated Election, and actually participated-exposed to the May 2010 election. In terms of level of knowledge before their actual experience with the new system, the study found that the voterrespondents were highly knowledgeable about the Automated Election, very poorly knowledgeable about the parts of the PCOS machine, and poorly knowledgeable about the steps in voting. However, with their actual experience of the new system, there is an improvement of their knowledge about the Automated Election and on the steps in voting. But on knowledge about the parts of the PCOs machine the result remained the same.

 

In general, the study discovered that there is an improvement in the overall knowledge about the Automated Election and its processes from the pre-election to post-election experience with the new system. The study also discovered that age variation and exposure to media information do not influence the knowledge of voter-respondents. Another significant finding is that education alone does not influence level of knowledge of the respondents but education coupled with actual experience influenced the level of knowledge of the respondents as seen in the comparison of the pre-election and post-election knowledge.

 

Keywords - Automated Election, PCOS machine, actual experience and Knowledge level