Monday, May 9, 2016

Defective VCMs, erroneous ballots, last minute 'shopping' mar Marinduque polls, other places

Initial partial and unofficial results for the presidential contest
show Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City leading by a wide margin.

Earlier today, Monday, May 9, 2016, more than 54 million Filipinos have cast their votes. (There has been no official report from Comelec that should explain why the voter’s list attacked by hackers on March 27, contained names of 70 million voters. The official total claimed by Comelec is 54.3 million voters).

Days before the polls civil society groups and Internet chatter point to a massive electoral fraud being plotted. Among the signs noted by many, is the report that hundreds of vote counting machine (VCM) technicians have been fired by the Comelec just before the polls.

Reports from different places in the Philippines do show many VCMs not working at all, or machines that reject ballots, or where voter’s receipts given to the voter reflect the name of another candidate that he/she did not vote for.

These, in addition to reports of vote buying, vote selling, campaign offenses, violation of guidelines set by Comelec by the Board of Elections Inspectors (BEI) on the ground, and other election-related incidents.

In Marinduque, there were delays in the voting process in some precincts due to VCM malfunctions, wrong ballots delivered to a clustered precinct, the usual “last minute shopping” for votes, among others.

Random reports on problems encountered by voters as posted on Facebook are the following:

Without a functioning machine, voters were asked to cast their votes in Bangbangalon Elementary School (Boac), with no voter's receipts, and their ballots just collected by the board of election inspectors (BEI)

PCOS machine in Precints #32-A to #35A not functioning.

No voting occurred in Brgy, Alobo as ballots received there were intended for Brgy, Malalag, Maitum, Sarangani Province in Mindanao. This was verified by a report dispatched by MindaNews earlier today that stated, "voting was hampered at a clustered precinct at the Malalag Elementary School in Maitum, Sarangani Province due to erroneous ballots."

Poll personnel discovered at the opening of the precinct at 6 am that the delivered ballots were for a precinct in Sta. Cruz, Marinduque province.
Post from Mogpog mayoralty candidate Adeline Lyn Angeles concerning "last minute shopping" at P500 per vote in the said town.
Meanwhile, the website Marinduque News Portal is currently showing partial and unofficial Election Returns in this island-province, and may accessed here. It is being updated now and then.