A high school in Valenzuela City is giving the Commission on Elections a tough act to follow after it held the first automated campus polls in the country.

About 1,400 students from the Sitero Francisco Memorial National High School cast their votes in a computerized process to elect officers of the Supreme Student Government Organization officers.

Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian and school officials led by Cesar Villareal and science department head Jameson Tan, who conceptualized campus e-voting, commended Vhincent San Joaquin for coming up with the system.

Last year’s valedictorian and now AMA Computer College freshman taking up Computer Science, San Joaquin said he used Visual Basic to design a system to process the vote as it is cast.

“After the polls, results per computer can be gathered and tallied in no time,” he said.

In case of accidental shutdown—no allusion to national and local voting conditions—the previous poll results are automatically saved and can be recovered when the system is re-started, according to San Joaquin.

Gatchalian said he was putting his full support to boost information and communication technology in the school community.

“Amidst debate on the issue of local and national poll computerization, we witness a laudable students’ project which reflects what the nation hopes to achieve for the coming elections; a quick, clean and fraud-free one,” he said.

Aside from Tan, San Joaquin gave credits to the school’s IT department head Lailanie Mendoza, IT teacher Maila Ben and SGO advisers Eduardo Cruz and Melissa Garganta. Arlie Calalo