Elections Not Credible Even at the Precinct Level
By BENJIE OLIVEROSBulatlat.com
I stand corrected. In a previous analysis “Has the Country Achieved a Clean, Honest, and Democratic Elections,” this writer concluded that except for the long queues, election automation was able to fix the voting process in the precinct level by making the tabulation and transmission of results smoother such that the job of poll watchers has become boring. However, after listening to the reports of the recently-concluded Peoples’ International Observers Mission, it became clear that while in the National Capital Region, voters only had to contend with the long lines and some missing names in official voters’ lists, voters in the provinces had to confront the same old fraudulent process called ‘elections’ even at the precinct level.
The largest delegation of foreign election observers ever to visit the country was divided into teams that went to Abra in Northern Luzon, Pampanga and Tarlac in Central Luzon, Cavite and Quezon in Southern Tagalog, Albay and Sorsogon in the Bicol region, Iloilo in the Visayas, Davao, Surigao and Lanao del Sur in Mindanao, Tondo and Payatas in the National Capital Region. To cover more polling centers they further subdivided into teams with local members of peoples’ organizations. What the different teams saw was the same all over the country. The following are the findings of the foreign observers’ mission regarding what transpired in polling places and precincts.
1. There was a sore lack in the preparations.
- There were too few PCOS machines, with many incidences of breakdown, paper jam, and overheating. The foreign observers discovered that Smartmatic purposely did not install cooling fans in the machines to cut on costs. In Davao, 24 out of 64 PCOS machines failed to transmit returns.
PCOS machines were being delivered up to the day before the elections.
- There was a lack of teachers serving as BEIs and an outrageous lack of technicians, with one technician handling many clustered precincts.... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/05/20/benjie-oliveros-elections-not-credible-even-at-the-precinct-level/
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