The Commission on Elections has yet to take a position on the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections decision to decline its accreditation as a citizens’ arm in the May 13 elections, a spokesman for the poll body said Friday.
Namfrel had earlier said it would decline accreditation because the Comelec has denied it access to information and data, which would cast doubts on its participation in the random manual audit.
“Obviously, it is not an easy matter for the Comelec to be in this position of a partner pulling out, but we will address the situation,” James Jimenez said.
“They’ve already done a lot of work. This is not a case of take it or leave it,” Jimenez said in a mix of English and Filipino. “Both sides would have to reach out to each other.”
“If you think about it, the main points of an automated election are that the results come out very quick and it is coming from a singular source,” Jimenez told reporters. “Perhaps one of the concerns is that, what happens when you have two competing sources of information?”
Jimenez also said the poll body expects a voter turnout of at least 80 percent in the May 13 midterm elections.
Jimenez said the expected high voter turnout for the May 2019 polls was due to the participation of some private groups, such as Grab Philippines, to educate voters.
“The One Destination campaign, a project where voter education materials detailing the process of casting and counting the votes would be made available for Grab passengers and stickers encouraging people to vote will be plastered on Grab fleet, is expected to make a difference, considering that a lot of political conversations happen inside Grab’s vehicles,” Jimenez said during the launch of the One Destination project.
The Comelec said there are 61 million registered voters for the May 2019 polls, higher by more than 2 million than the 2016 national elections.
Jimenez also said voting will take longer due to the new Voter Registration Verification System (VRVS) as voters may need an additional two to 15 minutes to cast their votes.
He said the new system was designed to identify and verify a voter’s registration through live fingerprint scanning of voters assigned to a particular polling precinct.
Before getting an official ballot from the Board of Election Inspector at a voting center on election day, a registered voter should first go through the VRVS machine for fingerprint scanning to check his identity and information.
He said the ideal use of VRVS is only two minutes but any problems could stretch the time by 10 to 15 minutes.
Also on Friday, Senator Panfilo Lacson predicted that senatorial candidates who are placing from first to ninth place in recent opinion polls will win, leaving only three slots still open.
He acknowledged, however, that there may be one or two surprise winners who have not fared well in the polls.
Liberal Party president and Senator Francis Pangilinan said the possibility of surprise winners gives the opposition Otso Diretso hope for a come-from-behind win.
Speaking in last Thursday’s “Kapihan sa Senado,” Pangilinan, who is campaign chairman for Otso Diretso, said that in his 18 years as senator, he had witnessed several surprise finishes.
Reacting to polls showing Otso Diretso candidates doing poorly, Pangilinan said the findings reflect the choices of respondents on the day the survey was conducted, and do not represent the results of the elections.
A Pulse Asia survey, meanwhile, showed only three-fourths of voters are aware of the party-list system.
Less than 10 percent of the total number of registered party-lists in the May 2019 polls garnered over 2 percent of votes, the minimum voter support required to earn at least one seat in the next Congress, the
Pulse Asia’s April 10-14 survey said.
Bayan Muna, topped the poll with 7.94 percent, followed by Ako Bicol Political Party with 6.65 percent, Magsasaka with 5.32 percent, and Anti-Crime and Terrorism Community Involvement and Support, Inc. with 4.67 percent, the Pulse Asia survey showed.