Before the partial and almost-final results came out, there were a lot of things wrong about yesterday’s voting. As of writing, the hashtag #HalalanDayaan2019 is at the top of Twitter’s trending topics. For very good reason as well because we have A LOT of questions about what the hell happened.
In case you missed all the shady stuff from yesterday, we’re keeping you up to date right now:
Voters didn’t receive receipts
There are several voters who questioned why they weren’t given receipts, or that they had to surrender them to the pollers at the precinct. Some say this is to ensure that vote buying doesn’t happen, but it’s a valid question. Citizens should be able to have a copy of who they voted for—or at least ask for one in case there are discrepancies (more on this later).
As one netizen noted, “The voting system has NO control and accountability measures… ALL YOU HAVE IS F*CKING INDELIBLE INK!”
“I didn’t vote for…”
This is why it’s important to get copies of receipts and why you should check before leaving the precinct. Several citizens complained that their receipts showed names they didn’t vote for.
Many claimed that Bong Go would automatically appear on their ballots. A friend of mine, who voted in a Makati precinct, said pollers inserted a blank ballot in a VRVM and it automatically printed Go’s name.
What’s worse is that this allegedly happened during a mock voting a few days before. Actor Bart Guingona said a volunteer brought this up and the person in charge “simply said that it’ll be noted in the minutes.”
Lo and behold, it still happened and several voters were disappointed because they couldn’t do anything about it. This is equally alarming since these machines are said to be more “enhanced.”
Pre-shaded sample ballots???
JSYK, it’s illegal to distribute sample ballots with pre-shaded names on election day because this is still a form of campaigning. But citizens still spotted those who broke the rules and some of these ballots were confiscated.
This Duterte endorsement ad
Since we’re on the topic of campaign ads, I have a question: Why did I see a YouTube ad of Sara Duterte endorsing Duterte Youth Party-List on election day? Isn’t this supposed to be taken down already?
If you don’t believe me, here’s a screenshot of it with a calendar date:
Red-tagging
Angel Locsin and several netizens called out police who were giving out tabloids with black propaganda and red-tagging. These were mostly directed at Neri Colmenares, Kabataan Party-List, and other Makabayan party-lists. Even the PNP violated the law. Ugh.
Malfunctioning machines
The Comelec promised us “enhanced” machines, but these were also the source of problems during the elections.
There were several pollers that told voters to leave their ballots and they’ll count them once the machines work again. Many just opted to return later or wait for hours so they can personally cast their votes.
Transparency problems
Last night, the unofficial tallies shown by the media were delayed due to Comelec server problems. According to spokesman James Jimenez, “The problem is there is an application that pushes data from the transparency server to media outlets. They tried to restart but that did not resolve the problem.”
This caused the flow of results to stop at 0.4 percent at 6:15 p.m. The transparency server was able to transmit updated data at around 1:19 a.m. That’s seven hours and the Comelec still can’t admit what really went wrong, leaving many to believe that a rig happened within that time.
***
As of 9:46 a.m. today, over 90 percent of Election Returns have already been processed. With the problems we cited below, it’s only fair for citizens to be angry and demand answers from the Comelec. We understand that results are close to being final, but we’re still hoping for fair results because several of us are suspicious AF right now.
Art by Tricia Guevara
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