30 election protests this year lower than previous elections — Comelec’s Garcia

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday said the number of  election-related protests this year have decreased compared to those filed in the 2019 midterm elections.

Asked in a Super Radyo dzBB interview how the 30 election protest cases received by the Electoral Contests Adjudication Department as of May 23 could be compared in the previous elections, Garcia said, “Kumonti po. Dati kasi nung ako’y nagpa-practice, medyo madami-dami po ‘yan, mga kulang-kulang 60 ang nafi-file noong nakaraan 2019.”

(That is fewer because when I was still practicing in 2019, there were about 60 election protests filed.)

“Siguro ang dahilan na lang, number one, sinasabi nila na magastos daw ang protesta; number two, siguro tinanggap na nung mga hindi pinalad ‘yung mismong pagkatalo nila; at number three, siguro sinasabi na nila na ang machines kasi ay accurate at ang findings ng PPCRV, ‘yung aming random manual audit ay nagpapatunay na talagang accurate ang mga makina natin sa pagbilang at pag-transmit ng boto,” he added.

(The reasons for this may be due to the protests being expensive; those who lost have already accepted their own defeat; and maybe they are already admitting that the machines are accurate as the findings of PPCRV in the random manual audit prove that our machines are really accurate in counting and transmitting votes.)

The poll body earlier said the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) recorded a 1.61% mismatch involving some 240 election returns and the transparency media server for the 2022 elections.

This was, however, addressed by PPCRV itself, saying that the mismatch could be due to errors on the part of the volunteers.

Further, Garcia explained that the election protests filed stemmed from alleged vote buying, terrorism, violence, disenfranchisement of voters, and malfunctioning vote counting machines (VCMs), among others.

He added that election protests against congressmen should be filed in the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, the Senate Electoral Tribunal for senators, and the Supreme Court en Banc or Presidential Electoral Tribunal for president and vice president.

The Comelec only has the jurisdiction on electoral protests involving city, provincial, and regional positions, acting poll spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco earlier said. — Giselle Ombay/RSJ, GMA News