The Commission on Elections and the Poll Automation Project are again at the receiving end of criticisms. All because of a Pulse Asia survey, which showed that 61% or 6 out of 10 Filipinos don't know anything about the automated system for the 2010 elections.

Using the survey results, some critics are now making it appear that the Comelec will not be able to implement automation properly.

In a radio interview this morning, I heard a Comelec official downplaying the survey. He explained that there is still enough time to conduct voters' education on the new system. He also applied a little bit of perspective adjustment. He noted that at least some people are already aware of the system even though the commission hasn't gone full blast yet with its voters' education efforts.

Comelec Spokesperon James Jimenez has his own approach to the issue. He says the commission wants to have a look at the survey questions. He explains that the questions may have been too technical.

Click here for Jimenez's explanation.

I'm not really surprised there are still a lot of people who do not know about the automated election system. Here's part of what I wrote back in October.

I discovered that the number of Google searches for  'philippine automated elections', '2010 elections' and other related keywords is so low the figure doesn't even show up on Google's keyword tool.

You can read more here.

I'm confident Comelec would be able to educate more people about this new system in the coming months. But why leave that task to the commission when those of us who are already knowledgeable about it can help?

If you're a blogger please help spread the word about. It doesn't matter if you support it or not. The important thing is the information is disseminated because the voting public should be ready if and when the system is implemented. You can re-post the various information materials already available on the internet. To help you get started visit the following links.

Link A

Link B