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Monday, July 07, 2003
Haphazard automated polls ‘to make mess’
REP. Antonio Cuenco (Cebu City, south) yesterday said implementation of the automated election system should be postponed if the Commission on Elections (Comelec) isn’t ready for this in the May 2004 national elections.
Comelec is mandated to implement the law providing for the computerized counting of votes. However, Cuenco feared that if Comelec pursues this without enough preparation, it would only create confusion that could result in several election protests.
Cebu could be one of the pilot areas where the automated election system will be implemented.
When the House of Representatives meets on July 28 for its last session, Cuenco said he will ask the oversight committee and the committee on suffrage to evaluate Comelec’s projects for the computerized counting.
“We want to know how prepared they are. If we find out that they are not capable of implementing it, it would be better to postpone it to the election after 2004, kay magkayamukat unya (rather than create a mess),” Cuenco said.
In a separate interview, Comelec 7 legal officer Marshall Rubia said all Comelec offices are now busy validating the list of voters.
This and the already completed computerization of the voters list and precinct mapping, plus the data capture system, are the projects conducted in preparation for the automated election system in May next year.
Next-day results
Cebu is expecting to receive this month from Comelec Manila the machines for capturing the picture of a voter and other personal data.
This machine is similar to the one being used by the Social Security System for the identification cards of its members, Rubia explained.
Comelec wants to go “100 percent” in conducting the automated elections system but “if worse comes to worst and they cannot implement it in the whole country,” Rubia said they have targeted certain pilot areas.
Cebu Province and Cebu City are likely to be identified as pilot areas.
Comelec has conducted the bidding for the automated counting machines, although the propriety of the procedure is being questioned in Manila.
With the use of the machines, Rubia said they hope to proclaim the winners in Cebu City a day after the elections. Cebu City has some 400,000 voters.
Manual count
But the actual results would depend on the number of counting machines that will be delivered to Cebu City.
Each automated counting machine can count 150 ballots per minute.
The Senate has approved Senate Bill 2526 (Amending RA 8436 or Authorizing the Commission on Elections to use an automated election system) on third reading to redefine the term “counting machine” as “any machine or technology that automates casting, counting, canvassing/consolidation and transmission of votes” instead of limiting counting machines to optical mark readers.
Senate Bill 2526 allows Comelec to determine whether to implement the automated election system in phases or to stick to manual counting in some parts of the country.
Under the proposed measure, an automated election system must have a stand-alone machine, which can count votes, and an automated system that can store, consolidate and print election results quickly.
It must have provisions for audit trails and must be able to detect fake, counterfeit and previously counted ballots.
The House version, HB 5851, is scheduled for third reading. JGS
(July 7, 2003 issue)
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