(Eagle News) – The Commission on Elections has chosen another poll watchdog, the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE), to replace the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) in the random manual audit of the May 13, 2019 elections.
This was after NAMFREL withdrew its accreditation as Comelec’s citizens’ arm on May 3 allegedly because it failed to get direct access to the electronic copies of the certificates of canvas and statement of votes.
The Comelec accredited Namfrel to be part of the Random Manual Audit and to receive the 27th copy of the election returns, but Namfrel felt that this was not enough and wanted to directly access electronic copies of the certificates of canvas and statement of votes.
Comelec said that LENTE will now do the random manual audit of the midterm elections, because of Namfrel’s refusal to do so.
-Ensuring the credibility of elections-
LENTE executive director Rona Caritos said that they “took on the task despite the time limitations” because the random manual audit was needed to “ensure the credibility” of the electoral process.
“Inasmuch as we don’t want to be part of it, nakita namin na kailangan. Kaya sasama kami dito sa prosesong ito to ensure the credibility of the process,” she said.
Comelec commissioner Luie Tito Guia said that the poll body needed to do the random manual audit of the vote counting machines to ensure the accuracy of the vote counting machines under an automated elections.
The poll body aims to audit 60 polling precincts in a day to make sure that the vote counting machines do an accurate counting of the votes.
Comelec said that they will only know the cities and municipalities which will undergo random manual audit on May 13, the election day itself.
The following day, May 14, the poll body will know what are the precinct numbers in the selected municipalities and cities which would undergo the manual audit.
The poll body said that it is all ready for the random manual audit after LENTE had agreed to participate in the process.
Guia said that in the random manual audit, the Comelec will test the accuracy and the performance of the vote counting machines.
He said that after the random manual audit, if they will find any errors in the machines, the results can be questioned.
“Iba po yung purpose, hindi siya pang-determine kung sino yung probable ang nanalo, it’s the performance of the machine in general,” Guia said.
(with a report from Erwin Temperante, Eagle News Service)