The Commission on Elections successfully conducted mock polls at the Senate earlier today. Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez says the exercise showed that each voter can complete the whole process of casting their vote in 5 to 7 minutes. He says at least one voter, an elderly person, took 11 minutes to vote.

The mock polls would help the commission identify possible kinks in the whole process and identify appropriate adjustments.

While the Comelec saw the outcome of the exercise as a "glass half full," election watchdog Kontra Daya chose to see it as one that is half empty. According to the group, the mock poll proved that not all voters would be accommodated considering that the whole voting process would only run for 11 hours. A report from gmanews.tv shows how Kontra Daya's Ferdinand Gaite came to this conclusion.

He said that only an average of 60 voters per hour turned up during the Senate mock elections. Using this number, he said that only 660 voters will be able to vote on election day because voting will begin at 7 a.m. and will end at 6 p.m.

And even if the Commission on Elections (Comelec) still accommodates those in line after 6 p.m., he said the poll body would still need at least four hours to serve all the 1,000 voters expected to turn up.

The poll body expects 50,723,734 voters to flock to 76,340 clustered precincts nationwide on May 10.

And while Gaite acknowledges that the actual feeding of the ballot into the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines took only 45 seconds, he points out that each voter would actually take about 25 minutes to vote. He did qualify that by saying that his estimate already includes the time spent waiting in line.

Gaite suggested increasing the number of Board of Election Inspectors for every precinct. Jimenez, for his part, suggests the use of guides or "kodigo." He explains that the process would go faster if voters came to the precinct prepared with their list of candidates.