Comelec exec: Script issue being used to discredit polls

A COMMISSIONER of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday lamented that the issue on the tweaked script of the transparency server was being exploited by some camps to discredit the results of the May 9 national and local elections.

Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said that the issue of the script is being “blown out of proportion.”

“’Yun talaga nararamdaman namin. It is being used to give a different…[to] discredit the elections,” Lim said.

The commissioner said that he would not have approved of tweaking the script so that the character “?” will be changed to “ñ.” The correction enabled the system to recognize names with “ñ.”

“Sa akin, kung ako ang tatanungin mo, kung in-inform ako, ang sasabihin ko, ‘Hindi na,’ kasi wala e… It just added more fuel to [the claims of cheating being made],” Lim said.

“I’d rather have stability. And I would rather answer questions about the question mark than the questions on the ‘ñ’,” he added.

Lim said that there was a breach of protocol as Smartmatic only notified the representative of political parties and the Comelec after the change was made.

On Thursday, Smartmatic and Comelec maintained that the tweak was only a “cosmetic” change which did not affect the results, counting, and canvassing of the votes.

The issue of the script tweak was brought up by the camp of vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as proof that he is being cheated. He is currently locked in a tight race with administration candidate Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo—with the latter leading by a margin of 210,000 votes according to latest unofficial tally of votes.