Smartmatic ‘super server,’ Davao queries stall canvass
By Gerry Baldo 06/08/2010 Yesterday’s canvass for the presidential and vice presidential candidates, which was supposed to be the last day of the verifications of the votes, with only five remaining Certificates of Canvass (CoCs) to be tallied dragged on for hours as members of the National Board of Canvassers (NBoC) were faced with CoCs without the required statement of votes and questions raised about an alleged “secret” server operated by poll equipment supplier Smartmatic at a building in Makati City. The existence of the alleged super server was raised by lawyer Lindon Caña of Bangon Pilipinas. According to Cesar Flores, head of Smartmatic, the “server” was part of the facilities it was required to set up under its contract with the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Flores and Commissioner Gregorio Larrazzabal said the questioned server was just a plain call center headed by one Venezuelan national with several people manning telephones and computers. Larrazzabal and Flores said that the call center located at the 34th floor of Antel Building in Makati City is a support center of Smartmatic and Comelec that receives text messages and calls from over 48,000 technicians deployed around voting precincts on election day. “It’s part of the system but there are no data there relative to the results of the elections,” Larrazzabal told members of the Senate-House joint committee. He said a lot of people do not know about the processes that have happened during the election that earned the ire of Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, a member of the NBoC. He took exception to the statement of Larrazabal. Caña asked the panel to subject the super server to “forensic examination” to ascertain its operations. Another issue that pervaded the floor was about the absence of the statement of votes for Davao Cty. George Garcia, counsel for Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) presidential candidate Joseph Estrada and Lakas Kampi CMD lawyer Romulo Makalintal objected to the canvassing of the CoCs from Davao City on the ground that these do not have the accompanying statement of votes. Makalintal and Garcia maintained that without the statement of votes there would be no way for the NBoC to cross check the data on the COCs. Aside from that, the election lawyers maintained that the printing of the statement of votes that should accompany the CoCs is required under the law.... MORE Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100608hed2.html |
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