SC asked to install vote receipt system

Former Senator Richard Gordon files ‘Petition for Mandamus’ in the Supreme Court to compel the Commission on Elections to activate the ‘Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail’ (VVPAT) feature of the automated election in forthcoming national election.
INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES

Senatorial candidate Richard Gordon Monday asked the Supreme Court to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to obey the election automation law by installing a vote receipt system and restoring security features in the voting machines to be used in the May polls.

In a mandamus petition, Gordon and his political party, Bagumbayan-Volunteers for a New Philippines, said he was appalled at the way the Comelec and its automation service contractor, Smartmatic-TIM Corp., were disregarding and refusing to implement any of the security features required under Republic Act No. 9369, or the 2007 Automated Elections Systems Law, that he authored and sponsored when he was a senator.

In particular, the former senator asked the high court to compel the Comelec to activate the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) feature in the counting machines.

He chided the Comelec for unanimously deciding against using the VVPAT supposedly because it could be used as a tool for vote-buying and would also extend the voting period by seven hours.

Recidivist

“The Comelec has been a  ‘recidivist’ in violating RA 9369. The last two automated elections in the country have not been credible because of its failure to implement the safeguards, such as presenting the source code for review, the use of digital signatures was disabled and the random manual audit was announced,” Gordon said.

“Because of this continued failure, the integrity of the elections has not been restored as the automated elections law intended. This has got to stop,” he added.

Gordon noted that Congress exercised its constitutional duty to protect the sanctity of the ballot by ensuring that safeguards were part of RA 9369.

Several safeguards

“Several safeguards were put in place to ensure the sanctity of the ballot. Among these safeguards was the VVPAT [which] consists of physical paper records of voter ballots as voters have cast them in an electronic voting system. The voter-verified part refers to the fact that the voter is given the opportunity to verify that the choices indicated on the paper record correspond to the choices that the voter has made in casting the ballot,” Gordon said.

Under Section 6(e) of RA 9369, which amended Section 7(c) of RA 8436 or the 1997 Automated Election Systems Law, one of the minimum system capabilities of the automated election system is that there must be a provision for VVPAT.

“The VVPAT is therefore a critical and indispensable security feature of the automated voting machine. Regrettably, however, the inclusion of this mandatory requirement under the automated election laws was previously and flagrantly violated by the Comelec during the 2010 and 2013 elections,” Gordon said.

Deterrent

The VVPAT system allows voters to verify if their ballots were cast correctly through the issuance of a receipt, showing the names of candidates that they voted for.

It serves as a deterrent against election fraud and provides a means to audit stored electronic results.

Gordon expressed apprehension that with the May 9 elections less than 100 days away, the Comelec was set anew to commit the same violation and would do away with an indispensable security feature that would ensure transparency, honesty and the sanctity of the ballot.

“With the elections fast approaching, [we] are witnessing anew the callousness and refusal of the [Comelec] to comply with the laws on automated elections,” he said.

“Petitioners strongly believe that unless respondent is ordered by this honorable court to fulfill its mandatory duty under the said laws, legal violations would be committed and the credibility of the May 9, 2016, elections would be jeopardized and compromised, as were the 2010 and 2013 elections,” he added.

Gordon further pointed out that Sections 6(e), (f) and (n) of RA 9369 were clear and unequivocable in mandating the use of the VVPAT and that it was not up to the Comelec whether or not to implement it.

Plain meaning

He noted that the “time-honored principle” of statutory construction was that a statute must be interpreted in its plain and concise meaning.

“Congress, in making use of the word  ‘minimum’ in the title of the [Section 6], gave the respondent no choice but to adopt an automated elections system that includes the VVPAT as one of the security features,” Gordon said.

“[Comelec’s] speculative yet baseless fear of vote-buying in case of the implementation of the VVPAT cannot be used as a valid excuse to disregard the clear language and mandate of the law. There is greater risk of cheating on a mass scale if the VVPAT were not implemented because digital cheating would be difficult to detect by those uninitiated in the world of information technology, than cheating by isolated cases of vote buying,” he argued.

Order Comelec

To prevent “a travesty of the forthcoming elections through flagrant and unconscionable violations of the automated election laws,” Gordon and Bagumbayan asked the high tribunal to issue a writ of mandamus and order the Comelec to include the VVPAT feature.

“The right to suffrage is a powerful tool placed in the hands of every Filipino, giving them the ability to change the course of our country’s future. Therefore, it is essential that the sanctity and credibility of our election system be continuously protected from threats putting its results in question. In order for the system to be protected, it is essential that implementation of various security systems must be complied with,” the petition said.