AN OFFICIAL of the Commission on Elections said Tuesday the deployment of vote counting machines, official ballots and other supplies were almost complete as this year’s elections neared.
Comelec Commissioner Sheriff Abas told reporters the only deployment still pending was that for the scissors to be used to cut the printed voting receipts.
"We won. At least we have good news for today," Abas said.
He said the Manila Regional Trial Court had denied the petition filed by AIR21 against the Comelec and the winning bidder 2GO regarding the deployment of some P92 million worth of vote counting machines.
He said the deliveries were almost 100-percent complete and that there were contingency plans in place.
"The final testing and sealing will continue and hopefully our election will happen on May 9," Abas said.
He made his statement even as Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said the Comelec would wait for 90 percent of all the votes to be canvassed before proclaiming the 12 senators who won in this year’s elections.
But she said the proclamation might take longer since the commission en banc had decided to proclaim the 12 winning senators rather than declaring the winners in batches.
“What we are going to do now is we will finish the counting and the canvassing and we will promulgate all 12 together. All at once,” Guanzon said.
She said the decision was made to prevent vote trending and instill fairness in the electoral race.
“We cannot do trending. Trending is against the law,” Guanzon said.
“So that it will not be unfair to those trailing, 11th or 12th, let us wait for the completion of the canvassing before the en banc proclaims the winners.”
Guanzon said the proclamation was unlikely on the night of the elections.
“ In the past it took a few days… [but] I don’t want to speculate,” she said.
In the 2013 elections the first six winning senators were proclaimed three days after the elections, with the next three proclaimed a day later and the final three the next day.