THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) stressed Tuesday the impact of defective vote counting machines (VCM) on voters was “not significant” when compared to the glitches encountered in the previous elections. Comelec Commissioner Marlon Casquejo, chairman of the election body’s steering committee, reported that 915 VCMs malfunctioned during election day Monday, but such did not affect many voters.
Comelec acting spokesman Rex Laudiangco also said voters were not disenfranchised by the VCM glitches, adding “all of these lessons will be taken to heart by the commission.”
Over 106,000 VCMs were deployed in clustered precincts nationwide. Meanwhile, a congressional leader urged the House of Representatives to look into the reported failure to function of VCMs in many urban and rural polling places across the country.
Deputy Speaker Rufus Rodriguez said defects in the VCMs and their secure digital (SD) or memory cards resulted in the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.
“We owe it to our voters to investigate these reports and recommend remedial measures, either via legislation or administrative sanctions or penalties to be imposed by the Commission on Elections on responsible personnel and/or its automation service provider, Smartmatic,” he said.
Photo by MANNY PALMERO
Rodriguez, who is on the way to being reelected as representative of Cagayan de Oro’s second district based on unofficial results, said the country had been experiencing VCM and SD card malfunction problems since it shifted to automation from manual voting.
“The Comelec and its automation contractor have not resolved these issues. There has to be a solution,” he stressed.
However, Rodriguez noted that Monday’s balloting process was generally orderly. Casquejo said they already anticipated that some machines would encounter problems.
“There’s no such thing as perfect system. Even your cellphone, iPhone or whatever, would suddenly hang, what is important is the malfunction is not as significant as in the elections in 2019.”
He said there were 106,000 VCMs, with just over 900 eventually malfunctioning.
Casquejo added he would recommend the procurement of new election machines to replace the “aging” VCMs in time for the 2025 midterm elections when he would retire three months before the May elections. (See full story online at manilastandard.net)
In related developments, the Comelec will conduct a random manual audit of more than 700 vote counting machines to determine its accuracy for this year’s national and local elections.
Commissioner Aimee Ferolino said the RMA was meant to “erase doubts” about the electoral system, saying the RMA was a process whether the automated count of the vote counting machines under an Automated Election System was accurate based on the manual verification of the said count.
“The random manual audit will determine and will bolster our faith in the electoral system. That the machine count is accurate and that the machine counts is what is reflected in the ballots,” Ferolino said.
She said the RMA would be a long and difficult and tedious job because after feeding it to the machines, they will count it manually for comparison.
“We will look at the record and we will let the record speak for itself,” she added.
“So, after the RMA, I am sure and I am confident that we can prove once again the accuracy of our machines and that our electoral system is reliable,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Comelec said they have not received any complaints from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting with regard to the accuracy of poll results.
Commissioner George Garcia said the PPCRV just needed to compare data to prove the accuracy of results.
“There is one way to prove the accuracy of the results as transmitted. [PPCRV] will just compare the hard copies of the [election returns] as collected nationwide with the results per precinct from the transparency server. As of today, we have not received any complaints from our citizens’ arm,” Garcia said.
Rodriguez urged the poll body to report to the public how many VCMs failed, the polling areas where the defective equipment was deployed, actions taken together with timeline, and number of voters affected.
The lawmaker said he could not understand why many vote counting machines and their SD cards failed, since the devices were supposed to have been tested for defects a few days before Monday’s elections.
He said he received complaints that in some areas in Quezon City, some VCMs did not function as early as the first hour of voting.
It took Comelec personnel six hours to replace them, but when the replacement machines arrived at the voting centers shortly after lunch yesterday, poll workers found out that their memory cards were “corrupted,” he said.
He pointed out that Comelec employees had to get new SD cards from the poll body’s warehouse in Laguna, taking them at least 12 hours up to early this morning and forcing affected voters to spend the night in their polling centers to be able to cast their votes.
“Our voters should not go through this sad, unfortunate and totally avoidable experience again in future elections,” Rodriguez added.