LP-ARBB to Congress: Do RMA to abort disenfranchisement of voters

The Liberal Party and the vote protection volunteer group Aquiino-Roxas Bantay Balota (ARBB) today insisted on the conduct of a random manual audit by the Joint Congressional Canvassing Committee to prevent the disenfranchisement of an estimated 3 million voters whose votes have not been included in the national canvass.

ARBB Deputy National Coordinator Joey Tenefrancia said an RMA is the remaining option to confirm the validity of the decision of the Commission on Elections to nullify 2.6 million votes cast for the vice-presidential race.

He added this would likewise allow the canvassing body to determine if the real outcome of the May 10 elections was indeed transmitted by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, noting that more than 200 PCOS machines sent Final Testing and Sealing (FTS) results to the Comelec, Pope Pius and Congress servers instead of the actual number of votes cast during the polls.

Tenefrancia said the ideal option would have been the opening of the ballots but since Congress is bound by a June 30 deadline for the proclamation of the country’s new leaders, “an RMA is the next best thing.”

“If this would only take about 1 week, why not do it for the benefit of the millions of votes discarded by the Comelec? If we don’t do this now, we will never know the real voice of the people,” he stressed.

Tenefrancia, who is representing Liberal Party vice-presidential candidate Sen. Mar Roxas in the national canvassing, said he would reiterate his manifestation and motion for an RMA when the Joint Canvassing Committee resumes on Monday to count the remaining Certificates of Canvass sent to Congress.

The LP-ARBB has took to task the Comelec for perfunctorily dismissing their call for a review of the 2.6 million null votes, pointing out it was the poll body’s duty to ensure that all votes cast in the country’s first automated elections were completely and accurately counted.

Former Education Secretary and Liberal Party Vice President for Policy, Platform and Advocacy Florencio “Butch” Abad had appealed to the Comelec not to be part of the disenfranchisement of the owners of the declared null votes.

Taunting the Comelec, Abad said the success of the first AES would forever be tainted by the insistence of poll body officials to nullify the votes due to technical reasons. He said the Comelec should keep an open mind about the opening of the ballots as this could help the Commission improve the automated system for the next elections.

The 3 million votes in danger of being nullified include the 2.6 million votes cast for Vice-President on May 10 but were declared “null” because of over-voting or under-shading; the more than 272,000 votes not tallied in the COCs because of the incomplete transmission of Certificates of Canvass; and the 80,000 to 140,000 plus votes that would come from the special elections to be held in Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sarangani and Western Samar.

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The LP-ARBB has raised questions over the unusually high rate of null votes for the position of Vice-President, especially those in areas considered as bailiwicks of LP vice-presidential candidate Sen. Mar Roxas. For example, in Regions 6 and 7 where Roxas won overwhelmingly over other VP bets, there are more than 500,000 “null votes”. If 50% to 60% of these votes are for Roxas, which is the voting trend in the two regions, this would be equivalent to about 250,000 to 300,000 votes.

There are also an estimated 272,000 votes that were not tallied in the COCs due to the lowering of canvassing thresholds nationwide and because many PCOS machines transmitted Final Testing and Sealing (FTS) results instead of the actual number of votes cast on Election Day.