Why is the random audit taking too long? ENQUIRY Demaree J. B. Raval 05/16/2010

Why is the random audit taking too long?

ENQUIRY Demaree J. B. Raval 05/16/2010 It is very alarming. The random manual audit is taking too long, and the results in those precincts where the audit is already finished are not being made public immediately. Worse, we are told that it will take about a month for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to come out with the results of the audit. A precinct audit should only take at most half a day, after which its results should be immediately transmitted to the audit committee and simultaneously made public. Any delay will fuel fears about discrepancies being covered up, and will make the audit process less credible. The random manual audit is the only remaining chance we have to determine the error rate of the PCOS machines that counted the votes on May 10, 2010. Without knowing the error rate, we will never know how trustworthy the machine counts and, by extension, the final outcome of the elections. At the Kapihan sa Sulo yesterday, Roberto Verzola of the electoral watchdog Halalang Marangal pointed out that with the acceptability of the results of the random manual audit put into serious doubt with the unexplainable delay, the credibility of the outcome of the elections is likely to be questioned. The random manual audit is the last remaining chance to determine the error rate of the PCOS machines, after the Comelec had taken away the four other possible modes, thus: (1) The results of the Comelec acceptance tests, which should have included tests for machine error rates, remain confidential; (2) The Systest Labs test results, which should also include machine error rates, also remain confidential; (3) A final testing should have established that the machines make zero error when counting the votes in 10 ballots. Instead, the machines showed errors so glaring that the Comelec cancelled the tests, and (4) On election day, a voter verification feature in the machine should have shown the voter if his choices were correctly registered, but the Comelec disabled this feature..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100516com3.html

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