Comelec claims to be ‘90% ready’ for the May 10 polls

by Leila B. Salaverria 

From Philippine Daily Inquirer

Link: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20100411-263652/Comelec-claims-to-be-90-ready-for-the-May-10-polls

MANILA, Philippines -- With a month to go before the country's first automated elections, the Commission on Elections said it was 90 percent ready to conduct the polls, with the remaining weeks to be focused mostly on delivering the voting paraphernalia.

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said the poll body might set up a “situation room” where the progress of the delivery of ballot boxes, counting machines and other election materials would be tracked and monitored. The area would be open to the public.
“We're thinking of coming up with a monitoring facility here centrally located where we-- I mean the Comelec, the administrators as well as of course members of the media-- will be able to monitor the arrivals and the progress of the various materials that we're transporting,” Jimenez told reporters.

He said the area would be where the reports from all over the country on the status of the delivery of the materials would be sent.

“It will be I think a very, very useful tool for the public to keep informed of the progress of the election,” he added.

Jimenez assessed the Comelec as being very much ready to handle the elections, saying the major components of the event, such as the ballot boxes and the precinct count optical scan machines, have been manufactured and have been placed in the poll body's custody.

“Considering that all the major elements in conducting an election are already in place, I would say we are about 90 percent ready to conduct the elections. The fact that we've already started elections for the overseas absentee voting, that's already a good sign for us,” he said.

The poll body would now need to ensure that the election paraphernalia reach their intended destination. The delivery of the ballot boxes and the PCOS machines has begun, with the Comelec focusing first on the far-flung areas, he said.

“Over the next few weeks, we would be looking at the deliveries. That's where we need to focus our attention, making sure that these elements arrive on time and in the proper order,” he said.

The delivery of the other election paraphernalia, such as the pens, would come at a later date.

While the ballot boxes and counting machines are ready, the Comelec is still in the process of printing the ballots, which will number some 50 million.

Jimenez said about 35 million ballots have been printed, and he believed the April 25 deadline for completing the project would be met.

The Comelec is also still in the process of acquiring ballot secrecy folders, the indelible ink and the ultraviolet lamps, to check if the ballots were authentic. The purchase of 80,000 UV lamps became necessary after it was found that the PCOS machines were unable to read the UV marks on the ballots because these were either misaligned, or the ink used to print them lacked the necessary density.

The training of the teachers making up the board of election inspectors has been completed, Jimenez said. The BEI are the ones who administer the elections at the polling places. The training of the canvassing system operators was nearly finished, he added.

But the election watchdog Kontra Daya said the Comelec could not claim to be truly prepared unless it agreed to test the automated election system through a mock poll that would simulate the actual conditions of election day.

Kontra Daya convenor Renato Reyes said the group would continue pushing its call for the Comelec to hold mock polls that would involve 1,000 participants -- the number of voters expected to troop to one polling place on May 10.

Reyes also said the mock polls should utilize the actual general instructions for the board of election inspectors.

“Readiness can be seen in the actual testing of the whole electoral system from the time the voter looks for his name on the actual list,” he said. “We have yet to see it really work the way it's supposed to work on election day.”

He noted the Comelec's last mock poll only involved 50 people.

He also voiced concern about the problems that the poll body encountered in the procurement of election paraphernalia.

Earlier, another Kontra Daya member called on the Comelec to scrap its plan to buy the UV lamps, and asked it to let Smartmatic shoulder the cost, on the ground that it was not the poll body's fault that the counting machines could not detect the UV marks on the ballots. Smartmatic is the technology supplier for the automated elections.