The Commission On Elections Could Possibly Penalize Suppliers Of Malfunctioning Election Instruments
COMELEC – If proven guilty, the suppliers of the election instruments that malfunctioned during the polling period might face penalties.
Yesterday, the national midterm election was conducted. Filipinos are following several media outlets on-line and on television for the 2019 Election updates.
As of now, ballot counting is still on-going and partial unofficial results are constantly being updated. Follow this link for the live update of the ballot counting.
In another news, Comelec chairman Sheriff Abas revealed the process this case is currently undergoing in his statement last Tuesday (May 13, 2019):
“Definitely, pina-pareview ko na sa law department yung penalty just in case may violation of contract. [Definitely, I have already forwarded the penalty to the law department for reviewing, just in case there is a violation of contract.]”
He revealed the statement following an inquiry whether the election authorities would hold the suppliers reliable.
This is according to an article from Inquirer.
However, Abas also claimed that Comelec is open for reviewing and is willing to pay attention to the suppliers’ remarks on their defense.
The election authorities also received reports of malfunctioning marking pens during the absentee voting period overseas.
According also to Abas’ statements, the SD Cards were supplied by Silicon Valley’s sister company and the marking pens were from Triplex Corporation.
1253 of the reportedly defective SD Cards were already replaced. There was a total of 1665 defective cards based on the reports.
Comelec is already planning to probe the possible causes of the SD Card glitches.
Abas confirmed this information in his statement where he also said:
“Papanagutin natin kung sino ang may cause talaga. [We will really impose penalties to whoever is the real cause.]”
After all, technical problems during a nationwide event is very difficult to avoid. Luckily, Comelec has deployed several tech officials for these kind of situations.
That is all there is to it, at least for now. We’ll post updates as soon as we got them.