Comelec admits errors in PCOS count, transmission of ERs

Estrada camp, others warn of massive poll fraud

Speed there certainly was, in giving out the election returns via the precinct count, but accuracy of the vote count certainly appears to have failed, giving rise to massive electronic poll fraud marking the country’s first automated elections.

The election lawyer of former President Joseph Estrada, George Erwin Garcia, yesterday bared before reporters the information that he would be presenting strong evidence of discrepancies in the electronicaly transmitted poll results of the 2010 elections before the proper forum, which is the congressional canvass board, which will be constituted once Congress convenes as the National Board of Canvassers (NBoC) to canvass the votes for president and vice president.

The camp of Estrada, as well as the camps of three other presidential candidates, Sen. Jamby Madrigal, Nicanor Perlas and JC de los Reyes, also at a press conference yesterday bared that they, too, have evidence of massive automated fraud which they also plan to bare before the congressional body, as well as ask Congress to conduct a manual audit of the votes.

Garcia also said they will be asking Congress not to rely solely on the electronically transmitted results when it convenes as the NboC, scheduled on May 31.

“We will be presenting evidence, documents and people as well as affidavits to prove that there were election irregularities. And this will have to reflect on the credibility of the elections,” Garcia stressed.

But Garcia said they are still in the process of consolidating evidence of discrepancies in the results of the automated polls, pointing to some parts of Masbate and San Juan.

In the case of San Juan City, Garcia said it is certainly highly suspect that Estrada ranked third place in his bailiwick.

“In this case (San Juan), there were precincts where the vote count did not match. There are so many reports of this nature and we will show the evidence before the Congress.” he stressed.

And to prove these claims, Garcia said they intend to ask Congress to open the Compact Flash (CF) cards in the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, the ballot boxes, and even conduct their own parallel manual count in some areas.

Garcia was firm in stating that the discrepancy between the automated count and the manual count was hardly caused by human error, but may have been in the flash cards, which is why he will ask Congress to open the flash cards too, to prove their claims.

There has been strong talk of the flash cards having been pre-programmed to favor a certain candidate.

“The president of the Philippines should be the president as determined by the people, not by things other than the people,” he said, referring to the transmitted precinct count.

To date, the poll watchdog, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) continues with its posting of the transmitted precinct votes.

Earlier, however, the PPCRV admitted that there were errors in PPCRV’s data encoding.

Also yesterday, in a press conference, the Commission on Elections, thorugh its spokesman, James Jimenez, admitted that there were erroneous transmittals of the results from the counting machines, but said this was not the fault of the machines, but “human error.”

The poll body also claimed that the errors would not affect the outcome of both national and local elections, even as no random manual audit has been finished, as the PPCRV already stated that it will probably take a month for the audit.

Jimenez said “human error” led to some areas transmitting the results of the final testing and sealing process instead of the actual election results, claiming that back-up memory cards containing the results of the final testing process were used to replace faulty memory cards. As a result, instead of the actual election results, the results of the FTS were transmitted.

“The results from the final testing and sealing were saved on back-up memory cards and in some cases where the BEIs (board of election inspectors) resorted to contingency measures and took out the wrong cards for delivery,” he said, without stating just how many BEIs resorted to this contingency measure, to claim that this “human error” does not affect the vote count enough to alter rankings.

This claim, was however, contradicted by the chief of the legal department, Ferdinand Rafanan who told the media that 10 precincts, or one tenth of 10 percent of the total number of precincts nationwide, reportedly transmitted results of the testing and sealing process instead of the actual election results, pointing to precincts in Camarines Sur, Iloilo City, Mountain Province, and Nueva Ecija.

Garcia said that compact flash cards may have been pre-programmed to make certain candidates win.

“We have strong evidence that there were flash cards that were pre-programmed to reflect desired results instead of real results or real votes,” Garcia explained.

Garcia calls on Congress to ensure that this scandal is exposed and determine the real votes of the people. “The duty of Congress is not ministerial, it is not mechanical. Their duty is to find out the truth and protect the sovereign will and voice of the Filipino people,” Garcia said. Garcia wants Congress to require that not only election results are turned over to them but also all the compact flash cards distributed nationwide in order that these may be examined for possible pre-programming.

“Congress will be the last bastion to ferret out the real votes that were cast. We urge Congress to require the submission of the flash cards as well as manual counting in a certain number of municipalities in order to establish the veracity of the counts,” Garcia said.

Garcia also wants the conduct of a source code review which the Comelec had turned down in spite of insistent requests from IT experts prior to elections.

Garcia clarified that this effort was not just to ensure the victory of former President Joseph Estrada, who is currently number two in the partial and unofficial results for president. “This effort is not for President Estrada but for the credibility of our elections. We are after the truth and the right of our people to have their votes counted,” Garcia said.

Margaux Salcedo, spokesman of Estrada said reports reaching the camp of Estrada revealed fraud in Regions 3 and 4, the Bicol region, Cebu and NCR.

“President Estrada is the champion of the masses. It goes without saying that we would like to see his victory but more than this, we are after the higher purpose of ensuring that in this election the results tallied reflect the true will of the people,” Salcedo said.

Meanwhile, tension rose in Antipolo after the discovery of 67 PCOS machines stacked in a house in Antipolo City raised speculation of a massive cheating by rival mayoral candidates.

Supporters of mayoral candidates Nilo Leyble and Rep. Lito Gatlabayan trooped to the house of Smartmatic technician Felipe de Leon in Carigma Extension, Tanag, Antipolo City, after rumors spread that the poll machines were brought there.

In an interview, De Leon admitted he brought the PCOS machines after the Comelec Antipolo refused to accept them.

He said he was too tired to wait until couriers of Smartmatic (the firm contracted to supply equipment for the automated polls) came to pick up the machines, so he decided to take the units home.

The report said backup compact flash cards were also discovered along with the PCOS machines at De Leon’s house.

To allay fears that the poll results may have been tampered, De Leon said the tally of votes had been transmitted before he brought the machines home.

The report said lawyers of both camps, as well as elements of the Antipolo police, were already in the area to secure the poll machines, and were waiting for the arrival of the Comelec municipal coordinator.

The local Comelec had proclaimed Leyble as mayor-elect last Wednesday.

For his part, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said there was no problem with De Leon’s initiative to keep the machines in his house, as long as the results had been transmitted, and that the polls were already over.

However reports said that another 10 PCOS machines were also stacked in the house of another Smartmatic technician in Flores subdivision, Barangay San Roque, Antipolo City.

Cesar Flores, Smartmatic Asia president dismissed this, saying that the discovery of the 67 machines in the home of a company’s technician in Antipolo should not cause people to panic as the latter is just following the company’s standard procedure.

“The technician is just doing his job, the PCOS are under his/her custody so if he/she thinks that the machines are not secured inside the school or polling places, he/she needs to find a place to secure the machines,” he said.

Jimenez said that the logistic company is currently pulling out the machines and transport it back to the warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna, where it will be kept.

“As a standard procedure, technicians are responsible for PCOS and for the pullout of the machines. But for security reasons, our people on the ground are authorized to secure the machines the best possible,” he said.

Jimenez also asked the people not to speculate regarding the discovery of the pcos machines since there are no irregularities involved.

Flores also noted that the transmission of the results and the election returns (ERs) have been transmitted and printed, so the machines found in Antipolo have no use anymore.

“There’s nothing that can be done in these machines after the elections,” he said.

The Comelec official was asked on the reason the Smartmatic technician decided to store the machines at his house.

“We are trying to determine it right now,” he said. Jason Faustino, Marie Surbano and Tribune wires