MANILA, Philippines — Amid reports of problems with vote counting machines and hours-long delay in transmission of election returns to media groups and watchdogs, the Commission on Elections declared Tuesday it successfully held the midterm polls.
“Despite those glitches that we have since it’s just less than one percent or one percentage of the entire 85,000 plus clustered precincts, we can say that the election is successful,” Comelec Commissioner Marlon Casquejo told a press conference.
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“In fact, we’re already in the 96% transmission. So our transmission was faster compared to the past elections,” Casquejo added.
According to Comelec, 961 or 1.1% of total 85,769 vote counting machines (VCM) earmarked for this year’s elections were defective, higher than 801 faulty VCM in the 2016 presidential election.
Meanwhile, out of 85,769 SD cards released for Monday’s election, 1.9% or 1,665 units malfunctioned — of which 1,253 were replaced. In 2016, there were 120 broken SD cards.
The National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections, or NAMFREL, on Monday raised concerns over "verified" reports submitted by its volunteers, including reports of malfunctioning VCMs.
“While many of the verified reports concern procedural lapses that are administrative in nature, there have been incidents that could affect the integrity of the results of the election in specific areas,” NAMFREL said.
In the same press conference, Comelec’s Casquejo maintained that “the result of the election is valid and credible.”
“Dumaan tayo ng sinasabi natin local source code review, all of the AES (Automated Election System) components passed through the local source code review and all of the AES major components passed with flying colors,” he said. — Ian Nicolas Cigaral