THE Commission on Elections said Sunday it is “100 percent ready” to hold today what it describes as the “most transparent” automated elections in the country’s political history.
“We are more prepared to hold the elections [on Monday than] … previous national elections we conducted…. The elections will become the most transparent elections in the history of Comelec,” said the poll agency’s spokesman James Jimenez in a press briefing.
“We feel that on Election Day, we will be 100 percent ready to conduct the elections . . . So far, [there are] no hitches,” Jimenez said.
He said the Comelec technicians were expected to finish the final testing and sealing (FTS) of 92,509 vote counting machines on Sunday.
“FTS have been clean across the board. There have been some issues regarding late arrivals, but we expect the process to be completed within the allotted time, which is today [Sunday]. So far, we don’t have major discrepancies,” Jimenez said.
The Energy Department on Sunday said there were ample reserves of power to make sure the automated elections run smoothly, even in Mindanao, which has experienced prolonged outages in recent months.
Under the FTS, the voting process is tested from end-to-end: the initialization of the machines, voting by10 people, the feeding of accomplished ballots to the VCMs, and the printing of election returns.
The Comelec also offered tips to voters to make the voting go faster.
“We encourage everyone to prepare a list of the people they want to vote for to speed up the voting processing. Secondly, make sure that the ballot is properly shaded. It is okay to abstain, under vote, but it is not okay to over vote,” Jimenez said.
The Comelec also appealed to the voters to refrain from making unnecessary marks on the ballot.
“Make sure that you fill up the ballot properly… and use only the official marker for shading,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez also warned voters not to wear shirts bearing the names or images of their candidates when they go to their respective polling precincts.
“Let us avoid wearing shirts bearing graphics or texts of your candidates so we won’t encounter problems on election day,” he added.
The Comelec said it expects a 75 percent to 80 percent turnout among 54 million registered voters.
Five candidates are contesting the presidency: Vice President Jejomar Binay, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, Senator Grace Poe, administration candidate Manuel Roxas II, and Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago.
There are six candidates for vice president while 50 candidates are running for 12 posts in the Senate; 115 candidates are vying for 59 partyl-list seats.
For the House of Representives there are a total of 634 candidates vying for 238 seats; 275 candidates for 81 gubernatorial posts and 206 candidates for 81 vice gubernatorial posts.
There are a total of 1,813 candidates for 776 seats in the Sangguniang Panlalawigan; 4,159 candidates for 1,634 mayoral seats; 3,795 candidates for 1,634 vice mayoral seats; 33,737 candidates for 13,540 seats for Sangguniang Panglungsod/Pambayan; four candidates for the governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; four candidates for vice governor of ARMM; and 68 candidates contesting 24 seats for the ARMM Regional Assembly.
In his press briefing, Jimenez also countered allegations of massive cheating during today’s national elections.
He said images circulating on the internet of pre-marked ballots with a pink line code, which will allegedly count votes of other candidates in favor of administration bets Manuel Roxas II and Leni Robredo, were fake and obviously altered with image editing software.
“The one on the right is clearly Photoshopped. Fake,” Jimenez said pointing to an example of the pre-marked ballot.
“That stupid pre-marked ballot story again. [It’s] offensive because it assumes voters are dumb enough to accept a pre-marked ballot,” he said.
At the same time, Jimenez said the Comelec expected a hotly contested election with the introduction of printed voter receipts from more than 92,000 machines and the closeness of the race.
On the eve of the Election Day, Jimenez admitted that today’s voting exercise could see reports of discrepancies between the VCMs and the printed receipt, which could stall the voting process.
Discrepancies such as these were reported in overseas absentee voting ahead of today’s elections.
But Jimenez said they were “firmly certain” that the VCMs will perform as planned.
“The elections this year will be hotly contested because as you can see even down to the wire, the fight is really close, I think except for the frontrunner, everyone is very close. It is really every single vote will count in these elections, so the votes will be contested,” Jimenez said.
Jimenez again warned voters that making false or frivolous complaints was an election offense that carried jail time of six months to six years.
Fake reports on social media would also be considered an election offense, he added.
In a separate press briefing, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista advised voters that if they felt there is something wrong with the printed receipt, they should file an objection with the Board of Election Inspectors.
Bautista also appealed to the public to be vigilant, observant and to be skeptical of exposes posted on social media.
Bautista also said he believed the Comelec has come a long way since the 2010 elections, accomplishing the source code review and implementing a voter verified paper audit trail.
Bautista advised voters to wear comfortable clothes and be patient.
Jimenez added that voters should cast their votes early and accept only ballots that are not marked in any way. With Alena Mae Flores