Comelec ready to provide vote transmission logs

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair George Garcia has expressed willingness to release to any requesting person or group the vote transmission records for the May 9, 2022 elections to end speculations over the “questionable” haste at which the votes were transmitted an hour after polling precincts had closed.

Garcia told a certain retired Col. Leonardo Odoño that copies of the transmission logs could be made available for pick-up on March 23 from the Comelec main office in Manila as soon as the rest of the seven-member commission gave their approval. “To erase doubts as to the transmission of the votes in the first hour after the close of polls in the 2022 national and local elections, the undersigned is very much willing to provide your requested transmission logs, subject to the confirmation of the commission en banc,” Garcia said in his letter to Odoño dated March 20.

“As to the requested explanation on the 20 million votes transmitted an hour after the close of polls which your letter characterized as questionable, the commission hopes that the provision of the transmission logs will clear the controversies you stated,” he added.

Garcia pointed out that the requested transmission logs had already been made available to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Elections Systems (JCOC) and the Comelec’s official citizen’s arm, the Parish Pastoral Council on Responsible Voting.

Questions to be answered

Odoño wrote the Comelec on March 10 to ask for a copy of the transmission logs while raising an issue about the transmitted votes.

Garcia told Odoño that “any subsequent specific questions that you may have on the transmission logs will be answered by the commission.”

In a Viber message to reporters, Garcia said that his office would release copies of transmission logs to other individuals or groups who would make a request.

“In fact even without the request, my office will be providing the KBP (Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas), Namfrel (National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections), and Lente (Legal Network for Truthful Elections) soft copies of the transmission logs. Colonel Odoño will get the certified hard copies of the same,” he said.

In October, Comelec spokesperson Rex Laudiangco said that the poll body would not grant requests for a copy of the “voluminous” transmission logs from over 106,000 vote counting machines, since these were already part of the records that had been turned over to the joint congressional oversight committee.

“They can get a copy of the data submitted to the JCOC. These are voluminous documents. We cannot give them to anyone who would ask for them. It is better if they get it from the JCOC,” Laudiangco had said.

At that time, he was reacting to the request of former information technology chief Eliseo Rio Jr. for a copy of the transmission logs from vote counting machines to Comelec servers based on the results of the May 9, 2022 elections. INQ