Lawmaker urges manual polls in May 2013

By:  Kim Arveen M. Patria
Business World Online

MANILA, Philippines (20 March 2012) - A LAWMAKER has filed a bill which seeks to employ a manual voting system in the May 2013 elections, saying that the use of counting machines in the previous polls was "illegal and irregular."

In a press briefing on Wednesday, House Deputy Speaker Pablo P. Garcia said he had filed House Bill 6008, which proposes an open voting system, with technology to be used only for the electronic transmission of election results.

Mr. Garcia said he has also sent a letter asking the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to withhold final judgment or action on the use of precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines in the upcoming midterm elections.

This came despite COMELEC's earlier decision to acquire some 80,000 more PCOS machines for the next polls.

Voting 5-2, COMELEC en banc decided on March 15 to allot part of the P7-billion May 2013 election budget for the purchase the machines, noting that private contractor Smartmatic has already corrected observed defects.

The decision drew flak from civil society groups and government officials, including Senate committee on electoral reforms chairman Aquilino Martin D.L. Pimentel III.

In an earlier statement, Mr. Pimentel said: "It makes no sense to adopt the same poll automation technology in succeeding elections, particularly in 2013 and 2016, if the glaring defects of the PCOS system are not rectified this early."

For his part, Mr. Garcia said the glitches may have been caused by COMELEC's insistence on the use of the PCOS machines despite issues in legality and regularity.

He said the use of PCOS machines in the May 2010 presidential elections was in violation of Republic Act 9369, which authorized the use of an automated election system.

Under Section 2 of the law, an automated election system uses appropriate technology in voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing and transmission of election results.

The 2010 polls has been dubbed as the country's first "automated elections."  However, Mr. Garcia said the system was not automated, as the PCOS machines were only used in counting the votes and not in voting.

In his letter to the COMELEC, he said: "In the [May 2010] election, the voting was actually manual, with the voters using an instrument to manually shade an oval before the name of the candidate in the ballot."

He added that the PCOS machines also failed to satisfy the minimum capability requirements for an automated election system.

The way the elections were conducted was also questionable, Mr. Garcia said, noting that the COMELEC violated a provision requiring that one member of the Board of Election Inspectors be certified as "information technology-capable" by government.