MANILA, Philippines — Thousands of vulnerable Filipinos may not be able to vote in the 2022 polls unless there is a more socially sensitive and convenient voting system for them, Senator Imee Marcos said Tuesday as she pushed for mail-in voting in the country in the upcoming polls in filing Senate Bill 1870, or the Voting By Mail Act.
“Let’s not discriminate against senior citizens, pregnant women, persons with disability (PWDs), and indigenous peoples (IPs) who should be given the option to mail in their votes,” Marcos said.
“The risk of their being disenfranchised is high due to their state of health and relative distance from polling precincts, especially if the Covid-19 pandemic persists,” the senator added.
Marcos, who is the chairwoman of the Senate committee on electoral reforms, downplayed fears that voting by mail would be less secure, saying that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been sending in their votes via mail in the past elections.
In recent Senate hearings, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) supported mail-in voting while the Philippine Postal System (PPS) expressed confidence in handling the necessary logistics, she added.
“The logistical challenges of voting by mail should not deter us from pushing our democratic processes forward,” Marcos asserted.
“We can’t be paralyzed by the same fear that we had when computerized elections were proposed for 2010,” she added, citing that the highly technical nature of Smartmatic’s electronic voting system was not understood by the common Filipino.
Whereas Marcos is for the reform, Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon are two voices against the proposed bill.
Sotto said that the mail-in ballot is the “easiest system of voting to cheat”.
“Sino tatanggap? Nationwide? Saan padadala, [sa] post Office? Kailan bibilangin? Sino bibilang?” the Senate president said in a separate message.
(Who will receive the ballots? Nationwide? Where will the voters mail their ballots, in post offices? When will the votes be counted, who will count them?)
“Paano kung may mag leak ng results whether true or fake? Any of those procedures can be cheated!” he added.
(What if someone leaks the results whether true or fake? Any of those procedures can be cheated!)
Drilon however is apprehensive that the Philippines is ready for mail-in voting.
“I am not so keen nor am I convinced that our system can adapt to a mail-in voting system.”, he said in an online interview.
“We do not have the infrastructure needed to assure our people that the voting by mail will reflect the true intent of our people,” he added.
—Miggy Dumlao, trainee