On automated election & pervert automatons

Senator Richard Gordon is still in an incensed mode--the same mode he had when he came in Holy Cross of Davao College for a forum on poll automation. Mr. Gordon earlier slammed the election survey conducted by Pulse Asia, saying it tends to "massage" the minds of the voters  "to vote for those whose names always bob up in surveys."

In his commentary in Philippine Daily Inquirer, which makes the case for automated election system, Mr. Gordon exhibited the same level of objection not only to election surveys but to the pervert political system as a whole. While an automated election system will be a first important move to "reinventing government", he said he has "no illusions that automated elections would have an automatic transformational effect on our politics." He added:

When we hear one candidate say that you should have a billion pesos to spend before you run for president, we know that there is something wrong with our politics.

When we see opinion surveys being manipulated this early to condition people’s minds and their preferences, we know that democracy is being perverted.

When little attention is being paid to service records and qualifications for high office, we are reducing our electoral politics to the common denominator of money.