Congress ratifies poll automation law

Congress ratified yesterday the Automated Election System (AES) bill that seeks to implement total poll automation by 2010.

Senate committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes and laws chairman Sen. Richard Gordon said he is optimistic that the law will reduce, if not eliminate, the practice of vote shaving and padding (dagdag-bawas).

"What is important here is that you can now transmit the results of the election, which will really kill dagdag-bawas. Within the hour after the closure (of elections), the results would be transmitted to the world — not only at the municipal level — but all the way to the provinces, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and all media all over the world as well," Gordon said.

"This is really a landmark piece of legislation and it allows for automated systems to be used and, of course, the beauty of this is that the Comelec will have a parallel safeguard — not only are you going to have the citizen’s arms (and) a technical committee but you will also have an oversight committee that will have to report to the Senate and House on the success or the deficiencies of the system," he said.

Under the measure, the Comelec will identify two provinces and two highly urbanized cities in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao for the pilot automation to be implemented in the May 2007 elections.

A mock election will be conducted by the Comelec in one or more cities and municipalities for field-testing purposes and the AES used for the testing must be certified by a technical evaluation committee not later than three months before the May 14, 2007 elections.

The bill provides for an appropriation of P2.6 billion from the Comelec’s Modernization Fund for the AES implementation in 2007.

Gordon noted that the Comelec has time to implement the law for the May 2007 elections.

"I am aware of the fact that the Comelec has been preparing for this even before the bill was passed," Gordon said. "I know this because I spoke with (Comelec) Chairman (Benjamin) Abalos in spite of the seeming word war between us. So I know he has been prepared."

The new law amends Republic Act No. 8436 or the automated elections law that was supposed to be implemented in May 1998.

With the last-minute passage of the new measure for poll automation, the Comelec is now rushing the preparations for the computerization of the 2007 midterm elections.

Abalos said he called all the members of the advisory council for an emergency meeting on Tuesday (Dec. 12) to discuss the implementation of poll automation.

"We will choose the appropriate technology to be used and identify the areas where poll automation will be implemented in our meeting on Tuesday," Abalos said in an interview. — With Mayen Jaymalin