Opposition coalition: Array of glitches makes election results doubtful

The results of the May 2019 polls are either doubtful, if not questionable, due to a number of glitches during the conduct of the elections, Tindig Pilipinas, a coalition of groups against the Duterte administration, said Friday.

The group, which staged a protest near the site of the canvassing of votes in Philippine International Convention Center, was referring the at least 961 Vote Counting Machines (VCM) machines that malfunctioned, 1,665 secure digital (SD) cards which were corrupted ,as well as the seven-hour delay in the transmission of results to Comelec’s transparency server as a result of the overwhelming number of results received.

One VCM caters to at least 1,000 voters, making the number of affected voters at least a million.

“Hindi namin sinasabi na may dayaan, pero napakalawak at napakaraming anomalya, irregularities, kaya nagkakaroon ng pagdududa sa eleksyon. Gusto namin maayos ito ng Comelec, that they launch an investigation on these, para po magkarron kami ng kumpiyansa sa halalan,” Jozy Nisperos, one of the convenors of Tindig Pilipinas, said.

“Boto po namin ito eh. Hindi po puede ibalewala ang boto namin. Hindi puedeng sabihin, basta, ito ang mga nanalo,” Nisperos added.

Opposition Senate bet and former Deputy Speaker Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada III agreed, saying that the Comelec cannot simple issue a denial of poll fraud when the conduct of the polls left more questions than answers.

“‘Yung seven-hour delay ng transmission has never happened before [since we had automated elections in 2010]. ‘Yung VCM, walang ganung karaming nasira noong mga nakaraang halalan. Ganun rin sa SD cards, mas maraming nasira ngayon. ‘Yung failure ng Comelec rito, glaring,” Tañada added.

Likewise, Tañada is not buying Comelec’s reason that the VCMs and SD cards malfunctioned because the suppliers of the SD cards, the paper used for the ballot and the markers used for shading the ballot differ from Smartmatic which manufactured the VCMs.

“That’s just a general denial. These machines should have been tested two weeks before the polls so that poll watchers could have already seen that the VCMs will have problems on election day. Comelec’s general denial will not answer the questions arising from the glitches,” Tañada added. — MDM, GMA News