Comelec to study declaration of dominant, minority parties in automated polls

MANILA, Philippines - Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento yesterday said the poll body would have to study and determine whether there is still a need to declare dominant and minority political parties with an automated presidential elections.

“With poll automation and 30 copies of election returns to be printed, would the issue of party dominance still be relevant?” Sarmiento asked but added that he will raise the issue in their en banc meeting this week.

He pointed out that Comelec would have to come out with a decision before declaring with finality the number of election returns (ERs) to be printed by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines at the close of voting.

Last Friday, the Liberal Party, Puwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) and Nacionalista Party filed petitions seeking recognition as the minority political party with the right to get the sixth copy of election returns.

The administration Lakas-Kampi-CMD, on the other hand, sought accreditation as the majority party with authority to secure the fifth copy of election returns.

Under the law, at the close of the polls on May 10, the PCOS machines will immediately print eight copies of election returns. Another 22 copies will be printed after the voting machine has transmitted all results to the next servers.

In the past, only six manually prepared ER copies were made available with the fourth and fifth copy going to the majority and minority parties, respectively.