The hybrid election counting system

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

National elections now are not what they used to be. Today, another person can be allowed by law to probably become a substitute or replace a person who initially filed a certificate of candidacy for a certain political position.
     The filing of COCs for next year’s elections ended on October 8, but under the Comelec’s calendar for the 2022 polls, substitution for a candidate in a national or local post can be filed from the end of the COC filing period until November 15, 2021.
    The Omnibus Election Code, particularly Art. IX, Section 77 says that “if an official candidate of a registered political party dies after the last day for the filing of certificates of candidacy, withdraws or is disqualified for any cause, only a person belonging to, and certified by that political party may file a certificate of candidacy to replace the candidate who died, withdrew or was disqualified.”
    Even while the law allowed substitution, lawmakers in both houses of congress suspect that the law is apparently being abused by politicians, including administration candidates, who are exploiting it as part of their strategy.
     Substitution must not be abused because the law is clear – it is only allowed if the candidate-nominee of a political party dies or is disqualified before election day. 
    That was why Deputy Speaker Rufus Rodriguez recently called for the imposition of a ban on the substitution of candidates by political parties to put an end on the mockery of the elections.
     True, it is sad that certain candidates for the presidency are suspected to be proxies for some politicians, even if they claim to be serious aspirants. That is why in the senate, Imee Marcos proposed that the timeline for filing certificates of candidacy must be moved from mid-October to the 15th of December preceding an election.
    If this was approved, it could have narrowed the chances for the substitution of candidates only to cases of death and disqualification, while retaining the same schedule for the timely printing and distribution of ballots to all precincts in the country.    
    Rodriguez also proposed to restore an almost forgotten rule that required incumbent officials to be deemed automatically resigned upon the filing of their COCs for other positions. In relation to the substitution law, of course any candidate would not agree to act as “proxy” for another aspirant, if he has to give up a lucrative government position.
     Certainly, resignation would level the playing field among elective and appointive officials like cabinet members and presidential appointees who are running for elective posts. This would also prevent officials from using their offices’ influence to promote their candidacies, including the use of public funds.
    A month after the 2019 midterm elections, Senator Imee Marcos, committee chair on electoral reforms and people’s participation in the senate, endorsed the committee report on the issue of holding a Hybrid Election System (HES) as proposed by Senate President Vicente Sotto III in Senate Bill 7, or the Hybrid Election Act.
    The main reason for the senate bill was that elections in this country can never be transparent and secure under the fully Automated Election System (AES) since we started using it in 2010. Come to think of it, nobody knows if our votes are counted correctly under a fully automated election system.
    The HES as proposed would require the manual tallying of votes at the precinct level using the old “tara” style of counting votes and writing on a wide Manila paper to ensure that all vote counting was held in full public view. A video recording and live-streaming for future fact-checking would also be shot.
    Marcos explained, under the HES, if a discrepancy of at least two percent occurred between the vote tallies done manually and transmitted electronically, an automatic recount for the position under question would be in order. The video recording would be of great help.
    Senators Sotto and Marcos agreed that every step of the election process must be open to scrutiny by the public this time because the Comelec gave too much importance to speed and convenience at the expense of transparency since AES was used in 2010.
     A Comelec official said the HES would surely be an additional workload for teachers and election officers, but I say it is not so because manual counting was what we used to do before the AES. There was transparency in counting of votes in that old system until someone in Malacanang proposed the AES for money and control of winning votes.
    Under the AES, vote-counting became haphazard and irregularities were reported such as the early transmission of votes, installation of an additional device known as a “queuing server” in the middle of the transmission process, script change in the middle of the live transmission of results, foreign access in election servers and incomplete transmissions of results.
    The reason why there is a provision in the AES that calls for a random manual audit of votes is because there is no transparency in reading ballots. In the case of a hybrid counting of votes, the manual process at the very start of the counting at the precinct level will ensure transparency and the security of our votes.
    By the way, I am reminded of the elections of not so long ago. After voting has stopped at 3pm, people gather in front of the polling places and wait for the start of the counting. Meanwhile, a big tally board stands in the plaza or public gyms where the votes of the candidates are totaled.
    This is what makes manual elections interesting. People know who won in their localities before midnight and begin celebrating right away even before the liquor ban is lifted. We do not know if the HES will be implemented in 2022.