Hybrid poll backers eye SC case vs Comelec
Proponents of the “hybrid” election system could go to the Supreme Court as a last resort should the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) completely drop its use as an alternative in the 2016 national elections.
Former election commissioner Augusto Lagman, the primary champion of the Precinct Automated Tally System (PATaS), the “hybrid” system, said that he has asked for a meeting with Comelec chairman Andres Bautista.
In PATaS, voting and counting will be done manually while the transmission and canvassing of ballots will be automated.
Lagman told reporters that during the meeting, he would formally inquire why the PATaS has been removed as an option for use in the 2016 national and local elections and hold a dialogue with Bautista to keep the system as an alternative.
“We are not giving up for the sake of transparent and credible elections,” he said, pointing out that PATaS advocates would like to prove the viability of the poll system.
Even then Lagman admitted to the slim chance that the Comelec would reconsider its junking of the system and said that his group would not hesitate to seek the intervention of the Supreme Court.
The main point Lagman wishes to discuss with the Comelec chairman is how the poll body came up with the P16 billion that PATaS purportedly needs for implementation. He said that P16 billion was way off the mark from his group’s estimate of only P6 billion.
The P16 billion-budget supposedly needed for the hybrid poll system is among the Comelec’s reasons for dropping it among its options, describing PATaS as “too expensive” and way costlier than the fully automated alternatives.
The two options left for the Comelec are: the refurbishment or upgrade of the existing 82,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines and the lease of 23,000 new optical mark readers (OMRs); and the lease of 23,000 new OMRs plus the lease of 70,977 other OMRs.
According to the agency, refurbishing PCOS machines is only estimated to cost P2.88 billion while the lease of 23,000 optical mark readers OMRs was placed at P2.5 billion. The lease of 70,977 OMRs, on the other hand, is only at P7.8 billion.
Apart from the steep cost, the poll body said the PATaS revealed serious flaws during the June 27 demonstration at the Bacoor National High School Annex in Cavite, making the process time-consuming, taxing, and prone to human error. It added that it would require an amendment to existing laws or the creation of new ones, and that its software would have be developed.
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