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Comelec requires survey firms to register

Mayen Jaymalin - The Philippine Star
This content was originally published by The Philippine Star following its editorial guidelines. Philstar.com hosts its content but has no editorial control over it.
Comelec requires survey firms to register
A Commission on Elections employee inspects official printed ballots for the May midterm elections, which are set to be discarded, at the National Printing Office in Quezon City yesterday.
Miguel De Guzman

MANILA, Philippines — Confused by too many election surveys? The Commission on Elections intends to fix that.

In a resolution, the Comelec said any entity – whether natural or juridical, candidate or organization – that conducts an election survey and publicly disseminates the results shall now be required to register with the commission’s Political Finance and Affairs Department.

According to the Comelec, only pre-registered entities shall be authorized to conduct election surveys and publicly disseminate results.

Survey firms already operating prior to the issuance of the resolution are given 15 days to register with the commission.

Poll companies, the Comelec said, must submit a comprehensive report within five days from the publication of their survey.

Meanwhile, candidates and political parties that commissioned the survey shall also be required to disclose in their Statement of Contribution and Expenditures the amount spent on such surveys.

Disclosure of survey sponsors and details prior to publication shall also be mandatory. Failure to comply with the disclosure requirements shall lead to fines, suspension of accreditation or legal action in case of deliberate misrepresentation of data.

Further, the commission shall also establish a verification mechanism to authenticate election survey results and prevent the spread of fraudulent surveys. Voters will be alerted of potential fake surveys through public advisories.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia previously reported that they will regulate election surveys to prevent voters from being influenced.

He said voters usually vote for those candidates leading in surveys and thus lose their right of choice.

Ballot verification

Due to the huge volume of printed ballots, Comelec is pushing back the target completion of ballot verification to April 20 instead of April 14.

According to Garcia, the verification process has already improved since they put up additional venues and hired more people, yet he feels they are still understaffed despite having over 1,000 people.

Comelec has so far printed around 53 percent of the required 72 million ballots. Of these, only 12 to 13 million have undergone manual and machine verification.

However, Garcia expressed optimism that there would be no delay in the shipment of official ballots to various parts of the country and, at most, only ballots for the National Capital Region would be left for verification by April 20.

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