Namfrel: No to 2013 automated polls if system not fixed

An election watchdog on Friday said it would not recommend automating the 2013 local polls unless the poll body fixes the system used in the May 10 elections. "Under the current system, I wouldn't recommend it. If they can address the weaknesses, particularly putting more safeguards, greater transparency, auditability and traceability, then we can go ahead with automated elections in 2013," National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) chairperson Jose Cuisia Jr. told GMANews.TV in an interview on Friday. The poll watchdog's recommendation echoed the report released this week by House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, headed by former Makati City Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., saying that electoral fraud took place during the recent national and local elections. The same report discouraged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from using the May 10 automated system in the 2013 elections. Cuisia said the poll body has "more than enough time" to find solutions to problems encountered during the previous elections before proceeding with automation in 2013. Namfrel presented 15 "concerns" that have remained "unadressed" two months after the May 10 automated polls, it said in a press conference in Makati City. These "concerns" include the removal of the digital signatures, the erroneous date and time logs on the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, as well as the lack of a "detailed inventory" of all equipment used during the May 10 polls. "The preoccupation with new technology and speedy counting to impress the public came at the expense of greater transparency and accountability of the system," Cuisia said during the press conference. The Namfrel chairperson likewise gave several recommendations to the Comelec to address these problems, which include publicly disclosing results of the random manual audit, as well as a full report of Comelec expenditures during the past polls. "We give these observations and thoughts in the spirit and hope that improvements can be made in future systems and elections, which will hopefully mitigate the types of problems that we experienced in May," he said. The group's recommendations will be forwarded to the Joint Congressional Committee on Poll Automation and to the Comelec, according to Cuisia. The Comelec denied Namfrel accreditation to be the poll body’s official citizen arm during the May 10 elections, and instead gave the responsibility to the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), which performed random manual audits during the previous polls. — LBG, RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV