A peek at the national canvassing (Part 2)

Sunday, 30 May 2010 05:40 PM Maui A. Hermitanio

This week, the Senate and House of Representatives convened in a joint session as National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) for the canvassing of votes for presidential and vice presidential posts.

Here are the highlights of what happened -

May 24 - the two chambers separately discussed the rules for the canvassing of votes. In accordance to the Constitution, the Senate president is required to open the certificates of canvass (CoCs) officially delivered to the Senate in a sealed envelope.

The election automation law requires the opening of election data, including electronically transmitted CoCs from the servers of the municipal, provincial and city board of canvassers and of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

May 25 – the Certificates of Canvass (CoCs) contained in sealed ballot boxes arrived at the HOR in time for the session. At around 2 pm, the joint session was convened, jointly presided by House Speaker Prospero Nograles and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. The plenary session adopted the rules for the canvassing. The house leadership maintained that no dilatory questions will be entertained and that they are set to finish the canvassing and proclaim a new president and vice president by June 4.

Senate president Enrile presented the report on initialization of the Consolidation and Canvassing Server (CCS). One of his main contentions was the ‘erroneous’ data on the number of registered voters in the Senate server that listed 259,733,195 and some 150 million voters in the Comelec server.

Smartmatic Asia Pacific president Cesar Flores admitted that there was an ‘error in application’ but maintained that the results of the canvass were not affected.

IT experts from the Philippine Computer Society explained that the servers used by Smartmatic should have been thoroughly reviewed and tested by Comelec’s Technical Evaluation Committee.

Various questions raised by legislators related to the absence of digital signature, erroneous number of registered voters and opening of electronically transmitted CoCs delayed the canvassing.

May 26 – the session was convened an hour late. Present during the canvassing were members of the Comelec, SMARTMATIC and lawyers of presidential and vice presidential candidates. The actual tallying of COCs started after both houses adopted the rules on canvassing. The secretary generals of Senate and Congress are in charge of reading the votes.

Among the first CoCs tallied were Overseas Absentee Votes (OAV) from Laos, Brunei, Guam, Papua New Guinea and Thailand. Five CoCs were canvassed at the end of the session.

May 27 – More OAV votes tallied from Czech Republic, The Netherlands, and South Korea. Local CoCs from Senators Benigno ‘Noynoy’Aquino III and Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas got an early lead the tally of votes.

May 28 – Three ballots at a time were opened. The canvassing exceeded the expected output of 20-30 COCs. At the end of the session 133 COCs overseas votes were tabulated. Liberal Party’s Aquino-Roxas tandem are still in the lead with 61,742 and 63,582 votes respectively.

The canvassing will resume on Monday, June 1. Congress targets to proclaim the winning candidates by June 4.

At the House of Representatives plenary hall lobby. Only Senators, House Members and authorized canvassers are allowed entry to the canvassing area. Security is tight inside the House premises.