The Comelec, it will be recalled, disabled the feature of the PCOS machine supposed to allow a voter to review whether the machine registered his choice correctly. This refers to the “return” button at the right side below the counter of the PCOS machine.
Besides, the ERs being digitally transmitted from one precinct to the city canvassing level could not be absolutely cheat-proof. At the Cesario Villa Abrille Elementary School in Barangay 76-A Bucana, for instance, it was the Smartmatic technician who digitally signed the copy of the ER, instead of the BEIs, a practice prohibited in the election rules. Barangay Bucana is part of the first district with the largest number of voters.
When Davao Today asked the BEIs why they asked the Smartmatic technician to digitally sign the copy of the ER, one of the BEIs said they did not know what to do because that part of the process was not included in their training with Smartmatic. Only one Smartmatic technician served 24 clustered precincts of the school where only one modem was shared by all PCOS machines.
As a result, the BEIs were able to transmit their ER electronically only by 1 am of May 11.
Transmission failures
Transmission failures caused by the absence of a cellular signal or electricity were also common, especially in precincts from far flung areas. Comelec recorded a total of 53 transmission failures in the city. In these cases, the BEIs had to carry by hand the compact flash cards which contained the results of the voting, including the ballots and all election paraphernalia to the canvassing area. There was also one case of a compact flash card from Barangay Mapula in Paquibato that had to be replaced with a preconfigured memory card.
A small classroom looks crowded with 20 chairs prepared for each voter to sit on and shade ballot. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll D. Fiel)
The BEIs had to feed the ballots again to the PCOS machines at the canvassing area, which further delayed the canvassing.
At least two compact flashcards, the ones coming from Biao, Barangay Guianga in Tugbok District were interchanged with those from polling areas from Digos, a city two hours south of Davao. Breva noted problems with at least 26 of the more than 50 memory cards brought to the canvassing area by foot due to failure in digital transmission. Breva said they were not sure if these memory cards were properly authenticated.
But he said they did not think this will affect the election results of their candidates.
Here’s hoping the vote cast is correctly interpreted by the PCOS machine. A BEI helps a voter feed his ballot into the PCOS machine. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll D. Fiel)
“But still, we felt the need to question for the sake of correctness,” Breva said. He also said his group already filed a case in congress when it convenes the National Board of Canvassers on May 31. Despite all these reports of glitches and irregularities, Comelec’s Cullo still declared that “all was well that ended well,” in the Davao City elections. But just by looking at how each step of the electoral process went, even Comelec authorities would have a hard time eliminating doubts on the credibility of the results of the polls. People may be quite impressed with the quick results of these polls. Compared with the previous elections’ tallying of votes which took weeks, the canvassing of results this time took no more than four days. But the more important question at the end of the day is that whether the results of the elections could be truly said to be fair, trustworthy and reflective of the people’s will.
The people’s right of suffrage, it turned out, was put at the mercy of the machines and whoever controlled it. As watchdogs had warned, indeed, there were a lot of things happening on election day that were invisible to the eye, so much that even poll watchers could hardly catch up with what it takes to be able to challenge the tabulation churned out by the machine. ( Cheryll D. Fiel/davaotoday.com)
