LP: Maguindanao ERs transmitted before polls closed on May 10

Notorious Datu Odin Sinsuat first to transmit at 5:42 pm of election day

The municipality of Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao was the first to electronically transmit the results of the elections on May 10, sending the tally of its votes as early as one hour even before the voting closed at 7 in the evening.

There were 464 registered voters in the clustered precincts covered by the PCOS machine. Of this, 463 voted for the same candidate for vice president. There were no null votes.

This is just one of the incidents why the Aquino-Roxas Bantay Balota vote protection volunteer group has been pressing for an exhaustive look into the 2.6 million null votes and more than 300,000 other votes for the vice presidential race that face nullification if the Joint Canvassing Committee continues to stonewall appeals to include them in its joint canvass of the presidential and vice presidential elections.

Former Education Secretary and Liberal Party Vice President for Policy, Platform and Advocacy Florencio “Butch” Abad said the Datu Odin Sinsuat incident is but one of the many questionable transactions that happened related to the May 10 polls and which raises questions on the integrity of the country’s first automated election system (AES).

Abad said a study conducted by IT experts showed that between 5 pm and 5:59 pm of May 10, before election precincts closed at 7 pm, ARMM had transmitted 1,064 votes for vice president – all from Maguindanao. By 12 midnight, ARMM had transmitted 393,196 votes for vice president, which includes 196,626 votes from Maguindanao and 72,005 votes from Lanao del Sur.

The early transmissions, he said, was surprising, especially following concerns prior to the election of possible transmission problems in the ARMM.

Abad said ARMM did not only transmit its electronic returns early. Since May 10 until May 17, ARMM is the only province that transmitted its election results everyday. Vote-rich provinces such as the National Capital Region (NCR), the Calabarzon and Western and Central Visayas completed their transmissions by May 11, while the Ilocos Region and Central Luzon was done by May 13.

Abad said ARBB would push the Joint Canvassing Committee to agree to look into the ERs so as not to disenfranchise the millions of Filipinos who cast their votes on May 10 and whose votes have been declared null or were among the votes that were not counted due to the lowering of the canvassing threshold in various provinces.