LP doubts Comelec preparedness for automated polls

The Liberal Party (LP) on Wednesday said it doubts whether the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is really prepared to conduct the country's very first nationwide automated polls in May, even after LP officials met with the poll body to discuss their concerns. "We left the hearing even more convinced... it confirmed many more of our fears. Walang satisfactoring sagot ang Comelec (We got no satisfactory answer from the Comelec)," said LP campaign manager Florencio "Butch" Abad in a press conference held in Intramuros, Manila. No test results yet LP said that among the "alarming" facts about the preparations are that the Comelec has not yet released the test results of the 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines and its batteries, 1,722 canvassing and consolidation servers and printers, 1,722 power generators, and 904 test and configuration line employees. It also said that it was concerned that the logistics providers and forwarders hired by the poll body to handle the delivery of the machines were all "unknown." Earlier, the Comelec enlisted the services of forwarding firms Germalin Enterprises (National Capital Region), Ace Logistics (North and South Luzon), and Argo Forwarders (Visayas and Mindanao) for the transportation of the poll machines. (See: 3 forwarders hired for poll automation project) 'Where's the contingency plan?' Former Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz Jr., who heads LP's vote protection team, said they are also concerned that the poll body has not yet released its contingency plans in case some problems occur on election day. "Hanggang ngayon wala pa ring backup plans. Nakakatakot ito (Up until now there are no backup plans. This is scary)," he said. He likewise said that the poll body has not yet decided whether to conduct the random manual audit before or after the proclamation of winners. He furthermore said that the Comelec should have accredited the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) as a citizens' arm because it has had experience in monitoring elections since 1986. Namfrel had earlier given up its bid for accreditation after a long wait for the Comelec to act on its requests. (See: Namfrel gives up bid to be Comelec’s citizen arm) Source code review Abad added that even though the Comelec allowed for a review of the source code, its rules governing the review made it impossible for them to do so. "They imposed so much restrictions... there isn't enough time to conduct the review," he said. The source code is the software that will be used in the May automated polls. The LP was the only party to formally manifest their intent to review the code. But Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, who heads the Comelec steering committee on automation, said that they have already "firmly" answered the questions regarding the source code, the forwarders, the random manual audit, and the denial of Namfrel's accreditation. "Anyone can conduct an unofficial quickcount now. We've democratized quickcount now," he said. Larrazabal said that they will be releasing the contingency plans before the start of the Holy Week.—JV, GMANews.TV