Inspection of Smartmatic warehouse delays canvassing

The inspection on the warehouse of election technology provider Smartmatic in Cabuyao, Laguna, on Monday delayed the session of the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC). The Congress, sitting as NBOC, suspended its session originally scheduled at 1 p.m. to wait for Smarmatic officials and members of the House committee on electoral reforms and suffrage that is currently investigating allegations of fraud in the May 10 automated elections. Smartmatic officials were supposed to demonstrate before the NBOC how the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines — the technology used in the recently concluded elections — work to enable lawmakers to determine the authenticity and due execution of electronically transmitted election results. As of Friday evening, the NBOC checked and tallied 133 of the 174 manually prepared certificates of canvass from overseas absentee voting. With this, the body only needs to canvass 41 manual COCs before dealing with the electronically transmitted ones. There are a total of 278 manually and electronically transmitted COCs. The NBOC last week decided to canvass first the manual COCs since its authenticity and due execution are easier to prove. They will deal with the questions of the lawmakers on the electronically transmitted results after. Meanwhile, the NBOC will not hold its session on Friday to give way to the sine die adjournment of the 14th Congress. Nograles told reporters that the Senate and the House agreed to suspend the canvassing on June 4. On Monday morning, the Senate held a session to transfer the date of the sine die adjournment from its original schedule May 31 to June 4. The House is expected to do the same Monday afternoon. The next Congress will hold its first session on the morning of July 26 then will suspend it to give way to a joint session where they will hear the first State of the Nation Address of the country new president. - Amita Legaspi/KBK, GMANews.TV