Roxas files poll protest, seeks ‘null’ votes in manual count By Benjamin B. Pulta 07/10/2010

Roxas files poll protest, seeks ‘null’ votes in manual count By Benjamin B. Pulta 07/10/2010 Former Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas, defeated vice presidential candidate of President Aquino, yesterday made good his threat to lodge an electoral protest before the Supreme Court acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET). In his petition, Roxas asked PET to set aside the proclamation of Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay and in his 102-page electoral protest, Roxas through lawyers Bienvenido Somera Jr. and Joe Nathan Tenefrancia, also appealed to the PET to conduct a manual revision of votes and order a count of 3 million votes that were not canvassed and considered stray or null votes. Roxas asked the SC to conduct a “comprehensive, system-wide forensic analysis and comparison of the country’s Automated Election System (AES) in order to “ensure that the true will of the electorate is upheld.” “Moving forward in the succeeding electoral exercises of this nation underscores the imperative to unmask and purge the infirmities that plague this fundamental democratic process,” Roxas said, implying the need for improvement of the country’s automated election processes. The LP vice presidential bet lamented that the certificates of canvass (CoCs) which were used to proclaim Binay, were not duly and properly authenticated as these failed to meet all legal requirements for the determination of authenticity and due execution of the CoCs for the vice president, in violation of the Constitution. Roxas said the election returns (ERs) used as basis to proclaim Binay did not show the actual votes for the position of vice president because of the high incidence of null votes totaling to 2,612,207 votes; the lowering of canvassing threshold in at least 145 clustered precincts nationwide; fraud, anomalies, irregularities and statistical improbabilities in certain clustered precincts, particularly in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao; among others.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100710hed4.html