No extra ballots in 2010 polls - Comelec

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said there will be no extra ballots for the 2010 automated elections to dispel suspicions of cheating.

“It would be ‘one is to one.’ No extra ballots will be printed because people might think the extra ballots would be used for cheating,” said Comelec chairman Jose Melo.

Melo said they hope to start the printing of the ballots by the National Printing Office by Jan. 4, 2010.

He added this is possible since the Comelec had set the end of November as the deadline for the filing of certificates of candidacy and the entire month of December for deliberating on the merits of these certificates.

But if there will be no excess ballots for the polls, the Comelec will require winning bidder Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) to produce 2,200 extra precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

The registration of voters is still ongoing and the Comelec is hoping to have around 50 million voters for next year’s polls.

According to Ferdinand Rafanan, head of the Comelec’s Special Bids and Awards Committee and director of the Law Department, the spare machines would be on standby in case any machine bogs down or fails the testing that would be conducted days before the actual election.

“We want to know if they will really deliver accurate results. We want to know if the machines can withstand an atmosphere that is damp, or an atmosphere that is dry or cold and if the machines can withstand (being transported in) rough road or dust or being under the sand. It will undergo all of these tests, including transmission test,” Rafanan said.

The final tests will be done three days before the elections with representatives from political parties, poll watchdogs and other concerned sectors.

Under the plan, the machine that will fail the tests will be rejected and replaced by a new one that will also undergo scrutiny and then sealed.

Meantime, the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System has summoned officials of the Comelec and winning bidder Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. to a hearing on June 23 to make sure all necessary preparations for the 2010 elections are in place.

Sen. Francis Escudero, co-chairman of the joint committee, said there were still questions that the Comelec must answer, including whether it would be ready to shift to manual counting just in case there would be trouble in the machines to be used for automated polls.

“We hope they will be able to answer certain questions which have remained unanswered up to this time,” Escudero said.

“I’d like especially to know if they are ready to immediately shift to a credible and quick manual count if any of the worst-case scenarios happen. We can’t afford to have a failure of elections next year,” he said.

The Comelec declared Smartmatic as the winner of the P11.223-billion contract with “lowest-calculated responsive bid” of P7,191,484,739.48.

It bested six other rivals for the largest single government project under this administration.

Escudero also said he would ask how the delays in the awarding of the contract would affect preparations of the Comelec for the 2010 polls, particularly the registration of new voters.

“They assure us that the elections will push through. The question in most people’s minds is whether the first automated elections will work, whether it will reflect the will of the people,” he said.

Escudero said another hearing would be scheduled later this month to take up matters which might not be fully discussed in the June 23 hearing.

Escudero was one of those who opposed Congress’ approval of the P11.3-billion supplemental budget for poll automation, saying it was like a blank check being given to the Comelec that had not yet even conducted a bidding for the project.

Sen. Richard Gordon earlier hailed the Comelec for successfully going through with and concluding the bidding process for the automated election project.

Gordon, principal author of Republic Act 9369 or the amended Automated Elections System Law, said the Comelec showed it was sincere in ensuring automation of the May 2010 general elections in issuing the resolution awarding the automation project to the winning bidder. – With Aurea Calica