ON Wednesday the Education and Information Department (EID) of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) conducted its first voter-education session to be broadcast on Facebook Live. By the time the broadcast ended, the roughly hourlong session had reached 298,097 people. I may not fully understand the complexities and nuances of Facebook’s Reach metric, but close to 300,000 people do not seem like a bad number to start with.
The session rolled out a new voter-education module—under an umbrella program called Know Elections Better (KEB)—designed by the women and men of the EID, and it was designed to connect specifically with millennials (my delivery of the material notwithstanding). As such, the module sought to present well-established concepts in more modern terms, using a mix of both Filipino and English, formal language and slang, visuals and thought exercises —anything, in short, to get the message across in the most effective and efficient manner.
The module was divided into three parts, tracing a sort of narrative arc, where the new voter is first introduced to basic voter-education concepts (Why are elections important? What are a person’s voting rights and responsibilities? Why is every individual’s vote essential to democracy?). The new voter is then guided through many possible reasons for choosing one candidate over another, and is introduced to a model decision-making framework—the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting’s “5 Cs of Voting”—and one designed specifically for the KEB module.
The third part of the module encourages the new voter—or, in this case, prevoters—to register and to assist in the nonpartisan task of voter education themselves. “What’s the use of learning all these things,” they were asked, “when you keep it all to yourself?” This is in line with KEB’s belief that voter education is a task to be shared by all in the community of voters.
The pilot audience was composed of Grade 11 students from a college in Manila, both male and female, accompanied by two very supportive teachers. The session was attended by the EID staff who will eventually roll out the new module to other schools, as well as representatives from the various offices of the commissioners, including the Office of the Chairman.
Wednesday’s voter-education session was simply the EID’s first step toward rolling out the KEB program in its entirety. Beyond lectures, KEB represents a multichannel approach to the task of speaking to voters that puts a premium on promoting comprehension of the underlying dynamics of elections, over mere information retention.
KEB seeks to achieve this goal by paying particular attention to the changing currents of popular communication, taking advantage of available technology, and using a “language” far removed from more traditional models. In this way, KEB intends to demystify elections as a way of both minimizing the necessity for blind speculation and equipping the electorate with the kind of comprehensive understanding needed to resist the allure of fake news.
And like I said, reaching almost 300,000 people on the first day of the program isn’t a shabby start.
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James Arthur B. Jimenez is director of the Commission on Elections’s Education and Information Department.