I sure am glad I was able to vote. Never mind that it took me almost 4 hours just to get my hands on my ballot.

The general consensus is that the whole process prior to the actual filling out of the ballot was a big disappointment. Not a few people were discouraged to vote. It didn't help that it was really very hot today.

It should be noted however that while many were discouraged that doesn't necessarily mean they were all disenfranchised. Let's clarify the terms.

discourage: made less hopeful or enthusiastic; deprive of courage or hope

disenfranchise: to deprive someone of a franchise, generally their right to vote

Making that distinction is important because, sadly, a number of media outlets have been using the term "disenfrachised" rather loosely when what they're actually referring to are those voters who, because of the long wait, heat and every other hassle, decided on their own to give up their opportunity to vote.

The disenfranchised are those who were prevented from voting because their names could not be found on the voters list.

It should also be clarified that the biggest gripe of the day -- the long wait -- is not exactly a problem caused by the automated system. Therefore to say that the new system was a failure is inaccurate.

As many can attest to, the automated system itself worked like a charm. Most people report completing the process from filling out the ballot to feeding it to the PCOS machines in less than 5 minutes.

Sure there were some technical glitches in some areas but all in all these were easily managed. As Comelec have been assuring all this time, there were enough contingencies to address most of these technical problems.

The real problem was obviously in the area of crowd control. Comelec should take note of this for future reference.

So was the automated election a success. I think we can safely say that it is. Maybe it wasn't the spectacular success we had ben hoping for but a success nonetheless.

I will be keeping my fingers crossed that all the candidates will be sport enough to accept whatever the result will be.