Namfrel: election results doubtful

THE National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said the malfunctions experienced during the midterm elections cast doubt on the election results.

Namfrel coordinator for Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental Nestor Banuag said based on their monitoring, not only did the vote counting machines (VCM) and SD cards malfunctioned, but so did the Voter Registration Verification Machines (VRVM).

He said voters had to wait for hours to wait for the VCM to function again, while the purpose of the VRVM was defeated after it also stopped working and the electoral board had to do manual verification of the voters.

The SD cards also have no back up, and some of them were exposed after being removed from the VCMs.

“The Comelec should show the activity log of the SD cards that were exposed after removed, the credibility issue must be addressed that there was no data manipulation,” Banuag said.

He said there was a significant number of faulty SD cards and VCMs that could question the accuracy of the results.

He said the poll body should show proof or basis that the transmitted result is accurate to the actual votes placed.

“The Comelec should answer all these questions and address these doubts,” he said.

The Comelec, which has blamed procurement laws for the delivery of “low-quality” SD cards and incompatible equipment/materials, had pledged to conduct an investigation of these problems.

On Thursday last week, the Comelec admitted that 961 vote-counting machines (VCM) and 1,665 SD cards suffered “glitches” during the polls.