Showing posts with label May 2013 elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label May 2013 elections. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Resolution No. 9518 - Guidelines on the Filing of Certificates of Candidacy and Nomination and Acceptance of Official Candidates for the May 13, 2013 Elections

Republic of the Philippines
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS
Intramuros, Manila

RESOLUTION NO. 9518

Guidelines on the Filing of Certificates of Candidacy and Nomination and Acceptance of Official Candidates of Registered Political Parties or Coalition of Political Parties in Connection with the May 13, 2013 Automated Synchronized National, Local and ARMM Regional Elections
(Promulgated: Sept. 11, 2012)

The Commission on Elections, by virtue of the powers vested in it by the Constitution, the Omnibus Election Code, and other election laws, RESOLVED to promulgate as it hereby promulgates, the following rules and guidelines on the filing of Certificates of Candidacy and Nomination and Acceptance of official candidates of registered political parties or coalition of political parties in connection with the May 13, 2013 Automated Synchronized National, Local and ARMM Regional Elections:

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

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."

Thursday, January 26, 2012

ARMM Voters Registration to Resume March 5

The system of continuing registration of voters and validation of registration records in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will commence on March 5, 2012 and will end on October 31, 2012, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) announced Thursday.

The COMELEC en banc, in Resolution No. 9338 promulgated January 25, 2012, ordered the resumption of voters’ registration in the ARMM in order to “give the Commission sufficient time for the conduct of pre-election activities and other preparations in connection with the May 13, 2013 elections.”

To recall, the COMELEC, September last year, deferred the voters list up in the Region which was originally slated to start on October 1, 2011 to October 31, 2012, “due to the pendency of the case questioning the legality of Republic Act 10153 on the synchronization of the ARMM elections with the May 13, 2013 National and Local Elections and in anticipation of the conduct of the ARMM elections at a later date.”

The Supreme Court has ruled on the legality of the synchronization of the ARMM elections with that of the May 13, 2013 elections, thus upholding the constitutionality of Republic Act 10153 and an Officer-in-Charge has already been designated in the Region.

Monday, September 5, 2011

House OKs allocation of P8 billion for 2013 poll automation



MANILA, Philippines - The House appropriations committee has endorsed the allocation of nearly P8 billion for the automation of the May 2013 congressional and local elections.

The amount is 80 percent of the P10-billion 2012 budget of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

The money will be for the purchase or lease of computer machines to be used in the casting of ballots and counting of votes.

They would be similar to the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines used in the May 2010 elections.

To save on cost, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez urged Comelec officials to study whether the PCOS units they leased from Smartmatic, the poll body’s automation contractor, could still be used in 2013 with some safeguards.

He said the Comelec has already paid Smartmatic more than P6 billion and has the option under its contract to purchase the PCOS machines at a discounted price of P1.8 billion.

“If we can use those machines for 2013 and one more national election, we will be saving taxpayers at least P6.2 billion,” he said.

Comelec Commissioner Gus Lagman, who was against the use of PCOS in 2010 when he was a private information technology consultant, said it was not practical for the poll body to buy PCOS machines.

He said warehousing would be a problem, plus the fact that technology changes fast.

He added it would be better for the Comelec to lease instead of buying the machines it would use in 2013.

Rodriguez, a member of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), said he, like Lagman, did not believe in PCOS when the Comelec was trying to convince lawmakers and the public about the technology.

“But now I am a believer. I saw how accurate the PCOS results were when we matched them with the actual count of votes in resolving election protest cases in the HRET. Because of their accuracy, we are now about to resolve all cases,” he said.

Because PCOS tabulation results were available at the municipal, city and provincial levels, Rodriguez said the nation knew in a few days that then Sen. Benigno Aquino III won the 2010 presidential election.

“Long before the official congressional canvass started, we knew President Aquino won. The Filipino people and foreign governments were already congratulating him. Election operators could not tamper with the PCOS. It would have been a different story if the old manual, cheating-prone system were used,” he stressed.

The lawmaker said that if the Comelec decides to use the PCOS, it should put in place additional safeguards since election operators and cheaters might have already studied how the technology works.

Besides the P8 billion in automation funds, the 2012 Comelec budget includes P123.2 million for the resumption of the system of continuing registration.

The poll body sought an additional P51.5 million for preparations for overseas absentee voting, but the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) gave the money to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

The Comelec intends to use the bulk of the funds for travel expenses since it would have to send teams to countries where there are large numbers of Filipinos.

The DBM transferred the money to the DFA apparently to save on cost.

COMELEC rushes preps for 2013 polls

To avoid further delay in the preparations for the 2013 elections, the Comelec pushed for the immediate convening of the poll body’s advisory council.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said there is a need for the newly created Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) to immediately convene the Comelec Advisory Council and initiate the first step in election preparations.

“We need to move fast because we are already late (in our preparations) for the 2013 polls. We cannot move without the CAC,” Brillantes said.
Last June, President Aquino issued an order dissolving the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) and reorganizing it into ICTO under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Malacañang named Louis Casambre as the executive director of ICTO. He will sit as chairman of the CAC with members coming one each from the DOST and the Department of Education, and another from academe, three from the IT industry, and two from poll reform groups.

The CAC shall have the function of recommending to the Comelec the “most appropriate, secure, applicable and cost-effective technology” to be used as the automated election system (AES).

“We want to start early and we already have a plan, the CAC should recommend the approval,” Brillantes said. – By: Mayen Jaymalin

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