SC sets oral args on receipt-printing feature of poll machines on Thursday

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on a plea to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to activate the voter verification paper audit trail (VVPAT) feature of the vote counting machines for the May polls.

At a media briefing on Tuesday, SC Public Information Office chief and spokesman Theodore Te said the oral argument would be conducted on Thursday, March 17, at 10 a.m.

"The argument will be on very limited issues to be contained in an advisory that the Court will issue within the day," said Te.

The SC set the oral arguments following the Comelec's filing last week of a motion for reconsideration seeking to reverse the court's decision on March 8, in a unanimous vote of 14-0, granting former Senator Richard Gordon's petition for mandamus to activate the receipt-printing feature of the VCMs.

Associate Justice Arturo Brion was on leave during the deliberations.

The SC said that after voter verification, receipts should be deposited in a separate ballot box and not be taken out of the precinct.

The decision prompted the Comelec to raise the possibility of a postponement of the May elections.

In its motion for reconsideration, the Comelec, through the Office of the Solicitor General, said there is no need for printed receipts for the May polls because the ballots themselves already fulfill the paper audit trail requirements under the law.

"The paper ballot is the VVPAT," said the SolGen, stressing that the May polls uses a paper-based election system and not a direct recording electronic (DRE) election system, in which only electronic audit trails become available.

In a DRE system, a voter views the candidates for an electoral position on the machine's monitor and selects the candidates of his/her choice through a touch-screen terminal.

Votes are subsequently stored in electronic devices like storage media device, memory card, compact discs, etc, which serve as audit trails.

The SolGen said that in a paper-based election system like the one in May, there are numerous audit trails that protect the sanctity of the vote, like the paper ballot, the ballot image, storage media cards, and the on-screen verification functionality.

"There is a strong likelihood that the May 2016 elections will fail if the voting receipt feature is enabled by the Comelec at this very late stage of the project," it said.

The Comelec said printing receipts and having them dropped in a separate box, as required by the SC, would extend the voting period to more than 20 hours.

The Comelec asked the SC to allow the poll body to demonstrate how the VCMs work. — RSJ, GMA News