Nograles wants poll automation plaints probed 05/18/2010

Nograles wants poll automation plaints probed 05/18/2010 Speaker Prospero Nograles yesterday said he has ordered the committee on electoral suffrage and reforms currently headed by Makati City Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. to convene and look into the conduct of the first automated elections in the country in the face of public complaints about electronic fraud and pre-determined election results or the so-called “hocus PCOS (precinct count optical scan).” “Rep. Locsin must convene the committee prior to the May 24 canvass of the joint session of Congress,” Nograles told the media in a text message. The outgoing Speaker also said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic must explain if there are provisions in the automated election law that were “disregarded” or not followed or were not implemented, and asked them to explain the cause of such electoral confusion nationwide. “They (Comelec and Smartmatic) owe the nation some kind of plausible and legitimate explanations. Let the cards fall where they should,” he said. Nograles earlier urged the poll body to not fully pay Smartmatic the P7.2-billion contract they had forged for the latter’s supply of the80,000 precinct count optical scan machines that were used in the automated elections last May 10 until the Congress’ oversight joint committee can give the public a clear assessment of the first-ever automated general polls in the country. He also said Smartmatic should make public with whom it sub-contracted the automation project and the supply for the flash cards, most of which were found to be defective even on Election Day itself. This as former Sen. Ernesto Maceda, spokesman of the United Opposition, said the opposition party is doubting the “big” lead of Sen. Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III, the front-runner among the presidential candidates in the May 2010 elections, against deposed President Joseph “Erap” Estrada. “We have doubts on Noynoy’s edging Erap in the count. We will bring our case before Congress when it convenes. We do not want to install an electronically determined President of the Philippines,” Maceda said in a radio interview. He said Congress must require that not only election results be turned over to it but also all the compact flash cards that were distributed nationwide “so these can be examined for possible pre-programming.”... MORE   Source:  The Daily Tribune   URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100518nat1.html