08/10/2026
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The San Bigkis Party respects the mandate of the Electoral Board, but respect for authority does not mean silence in the face of an electoral process that is being stretched beyond reason.
The voting period had already been moved to 11:00 AMโ7:00 PM because of the issues encountered with BotoBedista. That was already a reasonable remedy. Yet instead of drawing the line at the period it had itself established, the Electoral Board has extended voting until 9:00 PM.
At this point, this no longer appears giving students more time to vote. It looks like desperately trying to reach quorum. And that is where the process becomes unfair.
We cannot keep moving the finish line simply because the numbers have not reached the target. If genuine student participation remains low even after moving the voting period, then perhaps the institution needs to confront the uncomfortable reality that students are disengaged from this election. Their absence is not a number that should simply be erased by adding more hours to the clock.
The Electoral Board itself cited that โtechnical difficulties continue to prevail in the functioning of the BotoBedista website, with occasional unresponsiveness of the system interface.โ But after nearly two months of preparation for an election whose conduct was foreseeable and scheduled in advance, the continued reliance on system unresponsiveness as justification for yet another extension raises serious questions about the preparedness of the electoral process.
At this point, the extension is difficult to view as anything other than an effort to push participation toward the required quorum. The voting period had already been moved from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM. If the system had known technical vulnerabilities, these should have been anticipated and addressed before election day, not repeatedly used to justify moving the deadline further.
We refuse to believe that democracy means keeping the polls open until the desired turnout is manufactured. A voting period exists for a reason. Rules must bind institutions even when the outcome is inconvenient.
The students deserve an election that reflects their participation. We do not deserve an election prolonged simply to meet a quota.