Mock poll results mixed with Cagayan canvass tally
TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines—Initial vote tallies from at least three Cagayan towns on Wednesday were found to be figures from mock elections conducted in February and officials said this could affect the standing of the province’s winners.
The transmitted results from Rizal, Sanchez Mira, Ballesteros and Enrile towns were the votes used in the testing of the vote counting machines (VCMs), said lawyer Michael Camangeg, chair of the Cagayan board of canvassers (BOC).
The BOC directed the municipal boards of canvassers in these towns to reconvene and repeat the canvass. There are about 46,000 registered voters in the three towns.
The proclamation of winners in Cagayan had been delayed for three days because of technical glitches.
Gubernatorial candidate Cristina Antonio, who was trailing behind Liberal Party candidate Manuel Mamba by about 14,000 votes in the latest tally of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, said she was “greatly disturbed” by the errors.
“These errors will now put the results of the election in the entire province in question, especially that the number of votes affected will greatly alter the final results. [It] will put serious doubts as to whether the results we are getting represent the will of the people of Cagayan,” she told the Inquirer by telephone.
The Inquirer tried to get the reaction of Mamba and the third-running candidate, Vice Gov. Leonides Fausto, however, they did not answer text messages sent to their mobile phones.
In Nueva Vizcaya province, the proclamation of winners was also delayed for another day after the provincial BOC failed to resolve a defect in the “canvass consolidation system,” which it would use to count votes from the VCMs.
On Wednesday, the PBOC suspended canvassing to allow its chair, lawyer Manuel Castillo Jr., to travel to the Smartmatic warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna, and get replacements for the defective Consolidation and Canvassing System (CCS). RAM
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