PET denies Bongbong plea vs. use of ballot images in VP vote recount

The Supreme Court has denied former Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s opposition to the use of ballot images in the manual vote recount relating to his poll protest against Vice President Leni Robredo.

Sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), the court said Marcos has not shown proof of his claim that the decrypted ballot images were of questionable integrity.

"Thus, following the foregoing rules and jurisprudence, the Tribunal, therefore, retains the option to resort to the use of the decrypted ballot images should the instances to warrant such use under the aforementioned rules arise," the PET said through Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa.

In a September 18 ruling, the tribunal held that the Commission of Elections (Comelec) was able to "sufficiently explain" the presence of square markings in the ballot images, which Marcos had alleged was an anomaly.

The poll body, the PET said, explained that the presence of the squares "does not diminish the evidentiary value of the ballot images; nor does it show that the ballot images were compromised or that their integrity is dubious and highly questionable."

The Comelec had told the PET that the squares on the ballot images were to facilitate the determination of whether the voter's shade on the ballot had met the proper threshold.

Finally, the PET said it found Marcos' opposition to the use of the ballot images "inconsistent," given that "he himself moved for the decryption and printing of the ballot images" and was represented in the process.

"At the very least, protestant's participation in the foregoing activities shows a reliance on the integrity and security of the Comelec's process," the SC said.

PET: Refer to ERs

Ballot images have, in the past, been used when the paper ballots,  the standard reference in recount or revision proceedings, were "wet, damaged, or are otherwise unreadable," according to the PET.

Without these images, the PET said Marcos "will be deprived of the opportunity to revise the votes for the precincts where the paper ballots are unavailable."

While the PET found "promising" the Comelec's suggestion of using the ballot images to determine if a ballot shade was read by the vote-counting machines (VCM) as valid or not, it found the proposal was an "extremely tedious process" in view of the magnitude of the Marcos-Robredo poll protest.

Because of this, the PET ordered the Head Revisors, the persons in charge of the recount, to refer to the election returns to verify the total number of votes as read and counted by the VCMs.

Referring to the election returns can achieve the objective of the revision process of "mimicking or verifying/confirming how the VCMs read or counted the votes," the PET said.

In the absence of election returns in the ballot boxes, the PET directed the Head Revisors to use the certified true copies of such documents.

The PET also amended Rule 62 of the PET Revisor's Guide to reflect  that the segregation and classification of ballots shall be done by referring to the election returns.

In the same ruling, the tribunal partly granted Robredo's motion for the setting aside of the 50-percent threshold in the vote recount.

In doing so, the PET recognized Robredo and Comelec's submissions that a 20 to 25-percent shading threshold of the ballot oval spaces was applied during the 2016 elections. —KBK, GMA News