NO PROTESTS EXPECTED

LINGAYEN–If the auto-mated polling system delivers what it promises, next year’s elections will enable the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to release unofficial results within 24 hours after the voting, and allow Congress and board of canvassers to proclaim the winners in both national and local elections within the hour.

Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer, in a talk to newsmen here during the first nationwide demonstration and briefing on the automated polling system, affirmed that “the result (of the national election) would be known unofficially within one day.”

At the same time, Ferrer clarified that under automated election, a voter will not be made to operate the machine but simply to insert the ballot in the machine himself.

It will be a trained member of the Board of Election Inspectors who will see to the function of the machine and never, at any time, will he and the other members of the BEI hold the accomplished ballot of the voter.

He pointed out that “that there will be no other human intervention on the ballot except from the voter himself.”

Ferrer, however, warned that efforts must be exerted to orient voters on the process for accomplishing or filling out the ballots.

If voters shade more than the maximum number of candidates for certain posts, i.e, 12 for senators, all the votes shaded will be considered stray votes.

Ferrer, a native of Binmaley, said that if the unofficial results of the national election is already known within a day, it’s likely that the candidates who may be trailing their opponents by a wide margin may already concede.

But he added that in Philippine elections, “nobody concedes”.—LM#

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