Senator Richard J. Gordon reiterated that automated election in May 2010 is vital because it would serve as the mechanism that will propel the country towards the 21st century and true democracy.

Gordon, father of election modernization in the Philippines and author of Republic Act (RA) 9369, said it is high time to modernize the country’s democracy because after more than a century since the nation declared independence from foreign rule; the country has yet to be truly democratic, especially in the system used to choose the leaders of the country.

“Automating our elections is a signal that we are taking steps towards really modernizing our democracy. After 111 years of independence from colonial rule, we have yet to free our nation from the shackles of electoral fraud and cheating. We have yet to see honest, clean, speedy, and credible elections,” he said.

He stressed that automated elections will not only elevate the country's electoral exercise from third to first world class but will also erase public suspicion that the Filipino people's sacrosanct votes would be stolen from them.

Also, the Comelec is now gearing for a full implementation of RA 9369, which was passed into law in 2007. It would be the country’s first-ever nationwide automated elections.

The Comelec is set to conduct a voter’s education and information campaign across the country to prepare voters for the automated elections system that will be used in next year’s elections.

Gordon stressed that automating the elections would pull the country out of the political rut that it has sunken into and would bring closure instead of further causing division in the country.

"Having automated elections would allow us to resolve political disputes and bring credibility not only to our elections but also in the leaders of this democratic nation," he said.

“If the officials have the people's mandate, they can focus their attention on the business of governance instead of being distracted by electoral protests,” he added.

Legal challenges to the planned full automation of the 2010 elections are not yet over even after the Supreme Court (SC) has upheld the legality of the P7.2-billion poll automation contract between the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the technology consortium Smartmatic-Technology Information Management (TIM).

This developed as a group of administration congressmen led by House Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia is out to question before the SC the authority of Comelec to conduct full automation of the national polls scheduled next year.

In a press conference, Garcia revealed that he and fellow administration Reps. Hermilando Mandanas of Batangas and Antonio Cerilles of Zamboanga del Sur are filing with the High Court on Thursday a petition to stop the Comelec from “taking any further steps or activities towards the automation of the May 10, 2010 elections.”

He said the authority of the poll body to fully automate election nationwide has been lost or forfeited by default when it failed to automate the May 2007 elections in the pilot areas as mandated by Republic Act 9369, otherwise known as the Poll Automation Law.

Section 6 of RA 9369 provides that a nationwide automation can be done only after the Comelec has used an automated elections system in at least two highly urbanized cities and two provinces each in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, Garcia said.