THE Commission on Elections should consider the public demand that the poll body activate the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail so that they will have a receipt showing the votes they cast on the May 9 election, Palace said on Saturday.
In a radio interview, Presidential Communication Development and Strategic Planning Office Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III also asked the Comelec to explain why the agency has decided to forego activating the receipt of the vote counting machines.
Quezon made the appeal after Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said on Wednesday that they have decided not to activate the voter receipt feature because it may lengthen the time required to cast a ballot and receipts may be used by unscrupulous candidates to buy votes.
For Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the Comelec’s justification for refusing to give the voters receipts is “flimsy.”
“The Comelec has no prerogative to decide whether to implement the voter receipt or not. Its mandate is to fully implement the law,” Pabillo said.
Bishop Efraim Tendero, secretary-general of the Interfaith Coalition for Fairness, Accuracy, Integrity, and Honesty in Elections coalition, said political instability could emerge if the Comelec fails to make the elections credible.
“Based on our assessments, the voter’s receipt remains to be the most effective means for the voting public to verify that the machines have read and counted their votes correctly,” Tendero added.
To forestall this, Tendero urged the Comelec to implement all the security features to erase doubts on the system’s integrity.
The Church leaders said their call finds more relevance in the light of the recent survey by Pulse Asia finding that four out of 10 voters believe that cheating will happen in the coming elections.
If the Comelec will implement all the security provisions mandated by law, they said this confidence-building measure will impact positively on the public’s current perception of the credibility of the elections.