Several opinions and views have already been put forward regarding the possibility of reverting to manual vote-counting should the Commission on Elections be pressed for time in preparing for automated polls come May 2016, following the nullification by the Supreme Court of the Comelec’s contract with Smartmatic to refurbish the 80,000 PCOS machines that were intended to be used during the electoral exercise.
But going back to manual vote-counting is not as easy as that. Before that can be done, legally that is, Congress has to pass a law amending the existing one that mandates the automated counting of votes and canvassing of election returns and certificates of canvass.
Without a new law authorizing the return to manual elections, the Comelec cannot issue the rules and regulations that will govern the 2016 elections. All existing Comelec rules and regulations pertain to automated elections.
For instance, under the present automated elections law, the filing of certificates of candidacy (COC) is set in October 2015, while the political convention for political parties to nominate candidates is set in September 2015. However, in manual elections, the deadline for the filing of COCs is a day before the start of the campaign period which, for would-be president, vice president and senator, is in February 2016 and for candidates for local elective offices is in March 2016. The date for nominating candidates of a political party would likewise fall on another date in manual elections. So with the rules on the substitution of candidates and on the appreciation of ballots, as well as with the rules governing the canvassing of election returns and certificates of canvass manually prepared by the various boards of canvassers.
Under our present automated elections, only around 82,000 precincts have been established. Supposedly, each would be manned by three public school teachers; all in all, that would be around 256,000 teachers. If we return to manual elections, there is a need for a law creating 300,000 precincts. With three teachers per precinct, that would translate to a manpower of close to 900,000 teachers, or even 1 million, if we include the clerks to assist the teachers. And so a bigger budget would be needed to insure the payment of the allowances of these election workers.
Let us forget the suggestion of having “half-manual and half-automated elections.” This could be the source of too much political bickering, if not a cause for wild suspicions or speculations of poll cheating or manipulation of results. For who will decide which area is to have automated or manual elections? Some may suspect that the reason their area is being selected for automated or manual elections is to give undue advantage to certain candidates. Furthermore, there will be a lot of confusion in the issuance of rules and regulations if we adopt this idea of partial manual and partial automated polls.
—ROMULO B. MACALINTAL, election lawyer, Las Piñas City