GAPAN CITY – Are results of the counting of votes by the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines 100 percent accurate as purported to be?
It is a resounding “No” for at least 514 voters in Gen. Tinio, Nueva Ecija who were supporters of a senatorial candidate in the May 13, 2013 elections.
The voters, through their attorneys-in-fact, got the nod of a regional trial court branch here for the manual counting of the ballots in three clustered precincts that eventually revealed that the PCOS machine’s count for the senatorial candidate they supported was short of 119.
In its ruling, Judge Celso Baguio of RTC Branch 34, said “obviously, the (PCOS) machines counts fell short of (the) plaintiffs expectations.” Because of his decision, Baguio was hounded by “trouble” by way of an administrative case filed by a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official before the Supreme Court.
The Gen. Tinio election case wasdecided last March 21 but came to light anew as the reliability of the PCOS machines is being questioned by many quarters especially in the heels of the approval by the Comelec of a contract with Smartmatic for the refurbishing of the machines.
Congress, through the joint congressional joint oversight committee chaired by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, is also continuing with the reported digital lines discovered in some ballots counted by the PCOS machines.
The lines allegedly touched or bisected some ovals that the voters had to shade in the ballot to indicate their chosen candidate. Also, former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman, who is one of the leaders of the election watchdog AES (Automated Election System) and an IT expert, said recently that the PCOS machines “can be manipulated by expert techni-cians”.
In the Gen. Tinio case, plaintiffs Aranas and Arlan Esteban and counsel lawyer Anicia Concepcion Marquez, sought the opening of the ballot boxes in Clustered Precincts No. 29 and 30 at Barangay Piasand Clustered Precinct No. 19 at Barangay Concepcion after the May 13, 2013 elections.
They wanted to prove that thevotes cast in favor of their candidate senatorial candidate Eduardo Villanueva were not counted correctly. Docketed as Civil Case No. 4378-13, named defendants were the municipal election registrar, municipal board of canvassers and the board of election inspectors of the three clustered precincts in Gen. Tinio.
They said they actively campaigned for Villanueva, even went on a house-to-house campaign, and “received assurances of support from other registered voters”. On election day, they averred, they voted and waited until the results were released.
They were surprised, they said, when their candidate garnered only 379 votes in one of the precincts and a similar379 votes in the two other precincts.
Doubting the results of the vote count, and to validate their belief that the results that came out of the PCOS machines did not reflect the true will of the electorate, they launched a series of public consultations.
At the end of the consultations, they affirmed that the number of voters who actually voted for Villanueva was “far greater than the number of votes that came out of the clustered precincts in question”.
