Fraudulent polls ahead FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 02/23/2010 Forget clean and credible presidential elections in May. Not for such clean elections when the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic-TIM are covering up for each other; when even the absence of security markings from the National Printing Office (NPO) in some 2 million ballots printed for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is being cavalierly dismissed by the poll body as not being a “critical” factor. As Comelec spokesman James Jimenez was quoted as saying, the poll body failed to place the security marks on the ARMM ballots because the printers had not been configured in time for the printing, but not to worry, he says, as the Smartmatic and Comelec marks are in these printed ballots. As Jimenez put it: “There are two sets of security markings. The NPO marks are not critical” since they (NPO marks) are just an added layer, adding that the ballots would still be read by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines. “Even without the NPO security marks, the ballots would be protected.”... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune ALTERNATE URL: http://www.classicposters.com/commentary/20100223com2.html

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