Reports of violence, and complaints of long queues due to voting machine malfunction and discrepancies between voters’ choices and printed receipts marred the conduct of midterm elections in the country on Monday.
In Silay City, Negros Occidental, two supporters of reelectionist Mayor Joedith Gallego were killed while seven others were wounded after they were fired upon by gunmen aboard a van at around 7 a.m. on Monday, according to news reports.
In Basilan, three people were killed while two others were hurt in a clash with police in the waters off Hadji Mohammad Ajul town before dawn on Monday, according to GMA Integrated News.
While on maritime patrol, policemen flagged a pump boat carrying eight people identified with mayoral candidate Jamar Mansul at around 1 a.m. on Monday. The boat sped off, prompting the policemen to fire, and the passengers to fire back.
Other election-related violence was reported in other parts of the country.
Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil, however, declared the elections “very peaceful.”
On Election Day, long lines of voters sweltering under the heat outside voting precincts in public schools were a common sight – an offshoot of faulty automated counting machines (ACMs).
In Legazpi City, Albay, some residents lined up at around 6 a.m. at EM’s Barrio Elementary School and waited for hours before they could vote due to delays caused by malfunctioning ACMs.
At the Sauyo High School in Quezon City, voting in the 2022 presidential elections was a breeze. But on Monday, voters had to queue for at least an hour under the heat before they were cleared to proceed to their polling precinct.
“The machine was experiencing some lag, and the paper got jammed,’’ a volunteer from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) explained.
At the Sto. Nino Elementary School in Marikina City, there were long lines outside precincts but waiting rooms were set up to accommodate voters. There were no complaints apart from momentary malfunction of the machines.
At a precinct in Zamboanga del Sur, the ACM rejected ballots at around 5:30 a.m. The electoral board allowed the voters to shade their ballots and informed them that these would be fed into the machine once it was operational, according to the watchdog Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE).
In another precinct in Santa Cruz, Laguna, a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail got jammed, but the electoral board resolved the issue, according to the watchdog.
LENTE also received reports of voters “mistakenly” obtaining more than one ballot. It attributed this to the thinness of the ballot paper that may have caused the sheets to “stick together.”
The watchdog has observed more than 60 instances of ACM malfunction, including ballot rejection, scanner cleaning, ballot and voter’s receipt jam.
These were reported in Metro Manila and in the provinces of Antique, Bataan, Batangas, Benguet, Bulacan, Cagayan, Cavite, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Laguna, Maguindanao, Metro Manila, Misamis Oriental, Mountain Province, Negros Oriental, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Quezon, Sarangani, and Sorsogon.
“The most common problem involved sensitive scanners that frequently rejected ballots,’’ LENTE said. “In these instances, the Electoral Board had to temporarily pause operations to clean the scanner, resulting in delays and long queues.”
LENTE also received several reports about discrepancies between voters’ choices and their Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), commonly known as the voter’s receipt.
In Quezon City, a female voter reported that her voter’s receipt showed an overvote for the position of senator when she voted for only 12 candidates, according to the watchdog.
But the same voter believed that this might have been caused by smudging on the ballot caused by ink transferred from the ballot folder, it said.
Similar circumstances were reported in Cainta, Rizal; Parañaque; and Laguna, according to LENTE.
“The Electoral Board (EB) failed to inform the voters of their right to challenge the voter’s receipt,” the watchdog said.
LENTE also documented vote buying, unlawful electioneering, unlawful entry, and illegal assistance across various provinces.
“The majority of vote-buying incidents involved direct cash handouts and promises of further payments in specific locations, often accompanied by the distribution of sample ballots,” it added. — with reports from Guinevere Latoza, Rosmae Armena, Reinnard Balonzo, Rizza Camingawan, Erica Nicole Espanola, and Hazelyn Silverio