FILE PHOTO: National Cavassing for senatorial and partylist votes in Pasay City on May 14, 2013. (Kenji Hasegawa / Photoville International)
MANILA, Philippines — This 2016 polls, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) is letting the public see precinct-level results by posting it on a website.
Former COMELEC Commissioner Gus Lagman has been urging the poll body to upload the election returns on a website so that anyone can tabulate and verify whether the official result that will be released by the commission is truthful.
Lagman pointed out that while this was done in the 2010 and 2013 polls, the data that was published were incomplete because not all election returns were uploaded to the website.
“Ano ita-tabulate mo pag kulang? Useless. Kung magawa nila yun at least yung canvassing makikita natin kung may dayaan. So ang hindi na lang natin alam ay kung tama yung pinadala ng PCOS,” Lagman said.
(What will you tabulate if it is incomplete, that’s useless. If they will do this then at least we can be assured that the canvassing has no anomalies. The only worry left would be whether the PCOS machine sent the right data.)
COMELEC Chairman Andres Bautista said, the commission is eyeing to post online, result of each vote generated by the counting machine.
“Yung election return ng bawat makina ilagay sa website; hindi per region. Every machine, ninety four thousand. Yun din ang gusto naming gawin.”
(The election return of each machine will be posted on the website; not per region. Every machine, ninety-four thousand. We want to achieve the same.)
Meanwhile, the poll body will do some rounds to educate the public on how the vote counting machines that will be utilized in the upcoming elections will function.
Part of the discussion will delve on the four security features that some groups are asking COMELEC to use in this year’s polls.
These are the UV lamps, digital signature, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT and a source code review.
The poll chief said they will tackle the pros and cons once these features are activated, particularly the use of VVPAT or the printing of a receipt so voters can check if their votes were rightfully read by the machine.
Chairman Bautista said this system is beneficial; however it also has its disadvantages.
Among which is the possibility that the receipt will be used for vote selling and might delay the voting process.
“Minsan baka iba yung pagbilang ng makina versus pag shade mo,” Bautista added.
(It is also possible that the machine’s appreciation of the ballot is different from how it was marked.)
One alternative that COMELEC is eyeing in lieu of printing receipts, is to show the voter’s selected candidates on the machine’s monitor.
The commission is hopeful that once they have already explained these issues to the public their critics would stop attacking the institution. (VICTOR COSARE / UNTV News)
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