Court order compels Comelec to revert to manual counting of votes

Dousing plans by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to use a limited number of computers for counting votes in the May 10 polls, Senator Aquilino Pimentel yesterday said that the recent Supreme Court decision voiding the contract for the purchase of the equipment virtually compels the elections body to totally revert to the traditional manual canvassing of poll returns.

Pimentel said the 1,991 automated vote-counting machines (AVCMs) could not be used by the Commission on Elections in the May polls without being accused of defying the Supreme Court decision voiding the contract.

Pimentel was reacting to a statement of Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos that the poll body is looking into the possibility of using a combination of manual and automated counting in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.

He said Comelec is legally constrained from using the AVCMs since the top court invalidated the P1.3 billion ($23 m) contract precisely because the machines did not meet Comelec technical specifications and were found to be defective and susceptible to fraud. "I do not think it is legal, proper or even moral to use machines that were, according to the Supreme Court, illegally acquired by Comelec," the opposition senator said.

He said a partial or selective automation of the coming national and local elections has been foreclosed after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling nullifying the contract won by Mega Pacific to supply the counting machines.

"If the machines were illegally acquired, to use them would also be illegal. And those who acquired them illegally in the first place should answer for their misdeeds. And so those who persist in using them now in an apparent bid to justify their acquisition, should likewise be brought before the bar of justice to explain the anomaly," Pimentel said.

Pimentel said the only way to a partial or selective automation of polls is for Comelec to rebid the automation project.

However, he said it would be too late to do this, citing the admission of Comelec officials that they need at least six months to award the purchase of the vote-counting machines to a new supplier˜which is already beyond the scheduled elections in May.