I woke up this morning with a different kind of excitement. Today's special. The first ever automated election in the country.Who wouldn't be a bit anxious as to what could happen? What if? Hope not.
I wanted to be in the precinct early to exercise my right and witness the event. This time I switched on the TV to know what has been going on. People started to line up and public elementary schools began to get crowded with the early birds.
Bobby and I were supposed to leave after breakfast but a colleague warned me through SMS that the queue was too long and she advised us to come later. It was almost two hours before noon when we decided to go and true enough, the lines were still long. We found our precinct, got our number, and waited at the friend's house. It was past noon when we went back just in time for our batch to be accommodated inside the precinct.
Finding our names in the master list was easy but when I was handed the ballot and proceeded to a desk near the entrance, I became a bit nervous. What if I over-shaded the egg-shaped figures? What if I smudged the ballot? My hands were tense. Good thing I brought my list. But when it was time to feed the ballot to the PCOS machine, my heart started to beat fast. What if the machine would not accept my ballot? A few seconds later, I read the message. "Congratulations! Your vote has been registered." What a relief.
Casting my vote was easy after all. And I'm glad to have participated in the first-ever automated national and local elections.
