PCOS Controversies: Election watchdog AES Watch has called the 2013 elections a technology and political disaster due to several controversies, including premature proclamation of candidates and irregular decisions made during the canvassing. PCOS transmission issues On the day of elections, an estimated 18,000 voting machines, representing a quarter of the total 78,000 machines, experienced problems in transmitting the voting results. The Comelec claimed that the problems were caused not by the machines themselves, but by corrupted compact flash cards and issues with the cellular network coverage. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes claimed that the Comelec was aware of problems with cellular network coverage, but deliberately kept it from the public until after the election. The poll watchdog AES Watch issued a statement on May 18, saying that up to 8.6 million votes had been affected, or possibly disenfranchised. Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, the Philippines largest telecommunications company, released a statement dismissing the Comelecs allegations of cellular network problems, saying that the combined networks of Smart Communications and Sun Cellular covered every city and municipality in the country, and no unusually heavy traffic was recorded on election day. The Comelec failed to meet its self-imposed deadline of proclaiming winners in the senatorial election 48 hours after the end of the voting period. Senatorial winners proclamation The COMELEC proclaimed the first six senatorial winners of the election on May 16, though only 20 percent of election results had been canvassed. Three more winners were proclaimed the following day. The winners were proclaimed alphabetically rather than by the number of votes garnered, since the vote totals had not yet been finalized. Winning candidates Nancy Binay and Koko Pimentel declined to attend the proclamation, on the advice of their lawyers. Lack of source code review Following the election, a poll watchdog alleged that the Comelec failed to do a review of the source code for voting machines used in the election, in violation of the Automated Election Systems Law. Under the law, the technical committee must have documented certification that the all hardware and software components were operating properly at least three months before the elections. Vote-rigging speculation Speculations of election fraud turned up following the elections, as the vote canvassing revealed a 60-30-10 pattern of votes-- wherein administration, opposition, and independent senatorial candidates consistently obtained 60 percent, 30 percent, and 10 percent of the votes respectively.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 03:19:02 +0000
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