Despite the various election-related incidents that proliferated on social media during the midterm polls on Monday, Commission on Elections chairperson George Garcia maintained that these incidents are just isolated cases and no failure of elections has been declared in any part of the country.
“There was no failure of elections or whatsoever, as all have functioned well. Factors to say or indicate failure of elections are, number one, election paraphernalia failed to arrive; two, election officers, such as teachers, failed to report on their precincts, resulting in failing to elect a candidate,” Garcia said in Filipino in a media briefing on Monday.
Garcia maintained that a failure to elect an official must be a result of violence, terrorism, intimidation, threat, or force majeure.
However, the Comelec chief said there might be some precincts in the country where the voting procedure will be extended because of the issue with the ballots.
“The issue is that the timing marks are faded or blurred, which are hardly read by the ACMs (automated counting machines). Therefore, we ordered the reprinting of the ballots immediately this afternoon in at least 15 precincts in different areas of the country, including Datu Odin Sinsuat. We will also be coming up with a resolution regarding this matter. But these precincts will not affect the result of the elections, however, we have to proceed with the elections so as not to disenfranchise the voters,” Garcia explained.
Earlier on Monday, members of the Philippine National Police were forced to serve as Special Electoral Board (SEB) at the said Maguindanao del Norte municipality following a delay after several gunshots rang out, sparking tensions between rival supporters there.
“We have seen several scenarios in the Bangsamoro for us to declare an election extension. We will see how many of our 44,000 precincts will be able to transmit results. We are expecting that after 10 p.m. on Monday, most of the precincts will be able to transmit already,” he said.
In Abra, he said some PNP members were tapped to serve as SEB, as some teachers did not report because some are relatives of candidates, while some have an illness.
However, Chairman Garcia did not assess whether the midterm elections went peacefully, as the elections were still ongoing when he made the media briefing, even if PNP chief General Rommel Francisco Marbil disclosed that the 12 May polls were generally sound.
Low numbers of failing ACMs
Meanwhile, Garcia also disclosed that they were able to replace only 311 automated counting machines out of the 16,000 contingency machines that they possess due to various errors, including malfunctioning scanners, printers, and operational and procedural concerns.
“As compared to the 2022 elections, where 2,500 ACMs have conked early in the morning, this time, it’s only 311 throughout the day. On the issue of those ballots na hindi tumutugma sa result na lumabas sa printer, there is no truth on that as we don’t have any proof. Malaki po ang chance na nakalimutan na nila ang kanilang mga binoto kaya hindi tugma sa lumabas sa printed ballots,” he said.
Garcia also blamed the high heat index throughout the country during the election period, which was the reason why some of the ACMs malfunctioned.
“But as of this evening, no major issues have been found in our machines. Some are just proliferating misinformation on social media. We hope these fake news purveyors will stop abusing social media,” he said.
Moreover, Garcia admitted to reports that some ballots are wrongly printed, some of which don’t have back pages that contain the names of party-list group candidates.
“We cannot assure that all 68 million printed ballots are perfect. There were instances that some ballots were even delivered elsewhere, while some were not read by the ACMs because some data was blurred,” he said.
The poll body is expecting to receive transmission from the municipal and city levels by 10 p.m. Monday, and winners will be proclaimed either before the election day ends or Tuesday before dawn.
The National Board of Canvassers, meanwhile, will resume at 10 a.m. to start the canvassing of votes for the senatorial and party-list elections.