VICE Presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. vowed on Thursday he will file a complaint before the Commission on Elections on vote receipt discrepancies in the Overseas Absentee Voting after his legal team completes its collation of evidence.
At the same time, the National Movement for Free Elections warned that cheating may still happen during the May 9 elections by delaying the transmission of the results and by using the data leaked from the Comelec to coerce voters to support a certain candidate.
Fearing this could seriously affect the integrity of the May 9 elections, senatorial candidate Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez urged the Comelec to investigate the matter even without a complaint.
At the same time, Marcos stressed he will not take the vote receipt discrepancies issue sitting down and his lawyers are already in touch with Filipinos overseas who have personal knowledge of incidents where the vote cast in Marcos’ favor were credited to other candidates in the receipts.
“We are in the process of collating all complaints, all data in preparation for the filing of a complaint before the Comelec regarding the controversy. We will exert all efforts to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
He disclosed that more vote receipt discrepancies have been reported with the latest happening in California.
“When the voter in California complained to the election officers, he was scolded by the Board of Elections Inspectors who ordered him to just go home. The BEI even allegedly tore his vote,”
Marcos said. “What is disturbing is that I am the only one losing votes!”
Vote receipt discrepancies have been earlier reported in Hong Kong, Dubai, Kuwait and Japan.
Marcos further chided the Comelec for warning voters taking selfies with their receipts saying instead of wasting its time on such matters, the Comelec should ensure the conduct of clean, honest and credible elections on May 9.
He aired the call after the Comelec said the Board of Election Inspectors in Dubai, Hong Kong, Vientiane in Laos, Madrid in Spain and Singapore reported incidents of voters taking selfies with their ballots, which is strictly prohibited.
Commissioner Arthur Lim said the poll body will investigate if charges should be filed.
“You cannot fault the voters to take actions in a bid to protect their vote if they continue to hear reports of alleged flaws in the voting process,” the senator said.
Meanwhile, an IT professional connected with Namfrel bared different ways a losing candidate can be cheated during the automated elections.
“I’ll just delay the transmission of those which is not from my bailiwick, for example. Then the initial report will show that I’m leading,” Namfrel member Fernando Contreras Jr. said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.
The municipal level is the first recipient of the automated vote tallies where result are consolidated before they are transmitted to the National Canvassing Center.
However, he discounted the possibility of altering the numbers in the VCM even as he feared that the cheating may happen during the transmission and consolidation of votes.
Contreras explained further that the cheating can be done when the VCM fails to transmit the votes, as contingency plan, an election officer will bring the flash card along with the election returns to the municipal level.
Namfrel then asked the Comelec to have a complete electronic copy of all ERs in order to do a separate tally and safeguard the credibility of the results.
Aside from the strategy of delaying the transmission, Contreras warned that candidates may use the leaked database containing personal and sensitive information to either prevent them to vote or coerce to support a certain candidate.
“If I know your address, if I know you’re a supporter of a candidate, then I would do certain things to prevent you from going out [to vote, or] maybe coerce you somehow,” he said. “I can threaten you right now by writing physical mail because I know your address.”
Aside from Marcos, senatorial candidate Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez is also preparing a complaint and urged the Comelec not to ignore the missing votes overseas.
Romualdez said the poll body must look into the issue immediately as there is a seeming pattern like in the case of Marcos whose votes in Hong Kong, Dubai, Kuwait and Okinawa were credited to rival Sen. Gregorio Honasan.
“The Comelec can initiate a motu propio investigation to verify this very crucial incident that was reported in Hong Kong and other parts of the world. It is within their power to investigate any possible serious misconduct,” Romualdez pointed out, referring to the incident where a voter told the Comelec representative about the discrepancy and the only “took note” of the complaint.