Comelec to Duterte: Vote padding, shaving in upcoming polls 'impossible'

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday said that claims of possible election fraud in the upcoming midterm polls are unfounded.

Vice President Sara Duterte earlier said her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte fears possible vote padding and shaving in the national and local elections.

However, Comelec Chairperson George Garcia assured the public that such fraud is impossible.

"We guarantee that 'dagdag-bawas' (adding and removing votes) would be impossible in an automated election," Garcia said, stressing that since 2010, allegations on vote tampering have never been proven.

"This can be verified easily if a vote has been counted and has been transmitted because apart from the fact that we will first print the election returns outside the precinct, this can also be verified if the vote that is transmitted and printed is correct because we will show all ballot images in each precinct to all watchers and citizen's arm," he added.

Aside from these safeguards, the poll body chief said the Comelec will also conduct a random manual audit.

"All citizen's arms of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, apart from the hard copies of the election returns that will be given to them and apart from the results that will be transmitted from the precincts to their servers, we will also give them permission to capture the so-called QR code that contains the vote tally for each precinct," Garcia explained.

"There are a lot of ways to verify and counterchecks all the results in each precinct. So the doubts of some regarding the possibility of a vote padding or shaving, again, with all due respect, there's no basis for that."