Null votes, poll memo slow canvassing
06/03/2010 The issue of the null votes which comprise about 10 percent of the total number of votes cast is expected to slow down the canvassing of the Certificates of Canvass (CoC) for president and vice president even as Sen. Mar Roxas’ camp maintained that the ballots that were considered void should be checked. “We have to look at the ballots. At least, a random manual audit, to check the ballots. This is the only way you can see if there was a vote abstention, or that the PCOS (precinct count optical scan) machines did not read the votes,” Roxas’ lawyer Joey Tenefrancia said in an interview. But the presiding officer of the National Board of Canvassers (NBoC) rejected the move on the ground that the canvassing is limited only to the certificates of canvass (CoC). Lawyer J V Bautista, spokesman for Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino vice presidential candidate Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, said the null votes are not supposed to be counted and that it is not within the mandate of the NBoC to count and check the void ballots. “The House-Senate joint committee (canvassing the votes for president and vice president) has the constitutional duty to tabulate the CoCs and determine their validity. Null votes are not supposed to be part of the counting,” Bautista said yesterday. Bautista suspects that the move of Roxas’camp was meant to delay the proceedings in the House of Representatives and delay the proclamation of the winning president and vice president. “This is a futile exercise, good for propaganda, and should not affect the on-going canvass,” Bautista told House reporters. “It’s like groping at the straws.” Earlier, Liberal Party losing congressional candidate for Camarines Norte Liwayway Vinzons Chato, said that the null votes could either be for Roxas or for Binay. “Under the system that we are using, it can only mean that nobody voted for that position, because there was no shading of votes or that there was an overvote. In other words, the ballots were shaded for number two or three, so that is what null votes mean, but these are not included in the canvass,” Chato said. Bautista shared the view of the NBoC, saying that the panel could not look into the ballots and count the votes because that would be the duty of the presidential electoral tribunal in case there is an election protest. “Unfortunately for them they could not dig up the null votes The proper agency that should look into this is the Comelec, Congress, or the Presidential Electoral Tribunal,” Bautista stressed. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100603hed2.html |
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