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THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) will pilot-test automated voting during the October 30 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).
Speaking at The Manila Times Roundtable Friday, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said automated voting will be tried out in two villages in Dasmariñas City in Cavite and in District 6 of Quezon City.
“It is really the ambition of the Comelec to fully automate all elections in the country starting with the BSKE,” Garcia said.
He said delays in counting the ballots or proclaiming the winning candidates could spark violence initiated by losing candidates and their supporters sometimes and result in a failure of elections.
“But if the results are known in 15 minutes, how can there be cheating? How can you protest?” Garcia said.
During the last 2022 elections which were automated, the results were known in a matter of hours.
“Hopefully, the conduct of the next BSKE will be fully automated,” he said.
The decision of the Supreme Court to declare the postponement of the BSKE, originally scheduled for Dec. 5, 2022, as unconstitutional hindered Comelec’s plan to fully automate the BSKE, Garcia said.
Citing the operative fact doctrine, the Supreme Court decided to push through with the combined polls on October 30, and that the next BSKE will be held in 2025 and not 2026.
Garcia said this was why the Comelec asked the Office of the Solicitor General to file an appeal based on three grounds.
First is the question of why the terms of the village officials are being shortened.
Second, since the Supreme Court ruled that elections should be periodic, what the Court sustained as the date of the BSKE should be followed so that the next BSKE should be three years after October 2023.
Third, if the next BSKE will be in 2025, the Comelec would be preparing for two elections — the mid-term polls in May and the BSKE in November.
Garcia said one of the elections would have to be conducted manually because the Comelec does not have the resources for two automated polls.
“So we will be filing a motion for reconsideration, it may be an exercise in futility but just the same we would just like to emphasize that maybe this should be studied further. We can handle two elections but it would be very, very difficult,” he said.
At the same time, Garcia said the budget the Comelec submitted to Congress covers only the preparatory national and local elections of 2025.
“It does not contain any budget for any village or youth elections that would be conducted during the same year because when we submitted our budget proposal, the Supreme Court had not yet issued its decision on the postponement of the BSKE,” he said.
Also on Friday, the Task Force Kontra Epal filed disqualification cases against 35 village and youth candidates for premature campaigning.
The task force said the candidates engaged in social media and house-to-house campaigns, while some posted campaign posters.
The complaints against the BSKE candidates in Central Luzon, Metro Manila and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) will be raffled on October 2.
The Comelec said the candidates have five days to submit a response.
A petition for disqualification goes through a summary proceeding, which means that the resolution of cases is relatively swift.
The Comelec en banc wants to resolve the disqualification cases before the BSKE on October 30, Comelec spokesman John Rex Laudiangco said.
Under Section 80 of the Election Code, a candidate is barred from campaigning or engaging in partisan political activity outside of the campaign period. Violators may face imprisonment of one to six years, the loss of voting rights, and permanent disqualification from running for public office.
The campaign period for the BSK elections is from October 19 to 28.
As of September 28, Comelec has issued 3,198 show-cause orders for premature campaigning.
In the initial assessment, 199 candidates could face disqualification complaints, while 207 complaints were dismissed for lack of factual basis. — Franco Jose C. Baroña
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Credit belongs to: www.manilatimes.net
