Accuracy or Speed (INTRICT)

This week was a busy week for our INTRICT class. This week's topic was quite interesting. We discussed about the possible methods and ways on how the 2010 Philippine Election would be conducted. There are two possible ways. The first one is the DRE (Direct Recording Electronic.) The DRE is the cool looking monitor that has a touch screen on it. If we are going to look at it, it looks very accurate and reliable. Yes, it is! Cheating would more likely be avoided when DRE is used in the 2010 Election. The huge downside of this machine is that it'll take a very long time for an individual to cast their votes. More or less, a person would take about 20-25 minutes to cast their votes. There would only be 1 or 2 DRE machines per voting location. This means that the election would take a very long time. Other negative factor of the DRE is the so called "DUGYOT" factor. Let's face it. Filipinos are very DUGYUTIN people. A lot of people would be voting using their fingers. Now think, wouldn't a lot of bacteria or germs be present on the machine? Another factor that we should look at is that a lot of people would be using the machine and it is not impossible for it to break due to the lack of knowledge of some people who are going to use it. The second machine is the OMR (Optical Mark Recognition.) This is the scanner like machine where you put the ballots. OMR is the direct opposite of a DRE. Each voting individual is given a test like paper where they're going to shade their votes. After each and everyone voted, the person in-charge would place the ballots in the OMR and the OMR would scan and tally the ballots then give the results. The good side of this machine is that it's fast. It only takes about 2 minutes for the machine to get the results. The downside is that it is vulnerable to cheating and errors. OMR has a higher error rate than DRE (DRE has a very low error rate, near impossible.) So after saying all of these, what method would be better? Do we go for the DRE which produces accurate and reliable results but kills the speed and has a DUGYUTING factor or the OMR which produces instant results in matter of minutes but is vulnerable to errors and cheating? Whether it is DRE or OMR, it's the people's voice and choice who they're going to vote. Let's just remember that the machines are merely just bridges. We are the ones who are responsible on who are the ones going to sit in our government. VOTE WISELY