The NEC delegation visited Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong and Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) from May 5th to 11th, 2010. The delegation observed Philippine First Automated Election and automated overseas voting and participated in the ceremony for NEC’s donation of electronic devices.

The Philippines has introduced the Automated Election all over the country to provide fast election results to citizens and prevent illegalities in the procedure of election management. The NEC donated 17 vim projectors with screens and 17 laptop computers to the COMELEC to support its successful implementation of the automated election and education programmes for its members. The donation ceremony was held in the COMELEC building on May 7, 2010. Together with the NEC delegation, Korean Counsellor and COMELEC Commissioners joined the ceremony. 

In the First Automated Election, COMELEC hosted eight elections consisting of presidential, vice-presidential, senator, party list and local elections. On the Election Day, May 10th, the delegation observed the whole process consisting of voting, counting and canvassing. Although there had been some problems in the automated election system before the Election Day, all the problems were resolved and the fair and accurate election results were published.  

In the case of overseas voting, the automated election machines, PCOS, were introduced only in Hong Kong and Singapore in which have massive number of immigrated Philippine workers. The NEC delegation stayed in Hong Kong to observe Philippine automated overseas voting for two days. It was indeed a good opportunity to learn overseas voting management skills from the Philippine Consular’s presentation which will be useful to carry out Korean overseas voting in 2012.

The NEC delegation’s visit was a chance not only to aid Philippine election management but also to learn skills for overseas voting and electronic voting systems. Based on the constant exchange of experiences and knowledge with the COMELEC, the NEC does hope to make the close relationship between two organisations.