Comelec to go manual if Senate stalls on ARMM elections

MANILA, Philippines—Pressed for time to fully prepare for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections in August, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday said it will revert to manual elections if the Senate fails to decide on its postponement by the end of May.

Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. said if a Senate decision thumbing down a legislative measure seeking the deferment of the ARMM elections would come late in June, it would scrap automation and either go for the manual or an “open election system.”

Under an open election system, voting and the counting of ballots are conducted manually while the transmission and canvassing of ballots are automated.

“We have no choice but to go manual,” said Brillantes in an interview with reporters on Thursday, a day after it officially put to a close the filing of certificates of candidacy.

Aside from going manual, the Comelec was also considering an “open election system” but it still depended on how much time was left for the body to prepare pending the Senate decision.

The Comelec could only wait until the first week of June for the Senate to resolve the issue, he said.

The Senate committee on local government has invited the election agency to attend the hearing to give its position on the postponement of the ARMM polling, he said.

He stressed that the election body’s schedule to prepare for the August 8 elections has already been stretched too thin due to the delays in the Senate to resolve Senate Bill No. 2756, synchronizing the ARMM balloting with the 2013 national elections.

“We have been pushing for automation but since our timeline has been pushed to the brim, we will be taking a very high risk if we proceed with the automation,” he explained.

Automation was most likely to fail if the Comelec insisted to employ it in the ARMM elections, whose fate has yet to be decided by the Senate, said Brillantes.