Manual count of nullified votes useless, says Comelec

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday dismissed the idea of manually counting the nullified votes in the vice presidential race, saying it would be useless because the votes are either non-existent or non-distinguishable. In an interview with reporters, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal thumbed down the suggestion of Senator Manuel Roxas' camp to manually count the nullified votes for the vice presidential race, which is pegged at 2.6 million. Larrazabal explained that a nullified vote can mean an undervote or an overvote. Votes were also nullified in case of erroneous shading of ballots. He said that an undervote would not be counted if a person does not vote for any particular candidate for a said position. "You can't count votes that are not there," he said. In a separate interview, Comelec chairman Jose Melo asked the same question. "Paano mo bibilangin, kung di nga bumoto yung tao... mapipilit mo ba silang bumoto? (How will you count that if the person did not vote, will you force them to vote)," he said. On the other hand, Larrazabal said an overvote is not counted because it means that a person voted for two candidates for one position. "How do you determine if an overvote should be counted for one candidate or the other," he said. Melo added that canvassers cannot "second-guess" the voter. "Di mo rin masasabi na ako talaga choice niya (Nobody can claim that he is the choice of the voter)," he said. The poll body chief also said that the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines are more suited in determining the validity of erroneous shadings. Larrazabal, however, said that those bent on manually counting the nullified votes can always file an election protest with the Comelec. Based on the National Board of Canvasser's canvass of 189 COCs as of Tuesday 8:30 p.m., Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III has 9,564,943 votes while former President Joseph Estrada has 5,927,990. On the other hand, Estrada's running mate, Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, maintained his lead with 9,019,291 votes. He was followed closely by Aquino's running mate Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, who got 8,749,968 votes. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV