SC urged to compel Comelec compliance with ruling for vote receipts

Few weeks before the May 13 elections, a poll watchdog has asked the Supreme Court to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to comply with a 2016 ruling for the activation of the Voter Verification Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) feature of vote-counting machines.

In a 24-page petition filed Wednesday, Mata sa Balota, composed of several groups and individuals, urged the High Court to issue a writ of mandamus ordering the Comelec and Smartmatic to "honestly implement" the Court's March 8, 2016 decision.

In the three-year-old ruling, the justices ordered the Comelec to enable the VVPAT feature despite the poll body's arguments that printing voting receipts would be time-consuming and that the receipts could be used in vote-buying.

The SC ruled then that it sees "no reason" why voters should be stopped from reading the voter's receipt after they cast their ballot, and that the Comelec is not prohibited from requiring voters to leave the receipts at a separate box in the precinct after verifying them.

"The credibility of the results of any election depends, to a large extent, on the confidence of each voter that his or her individual choices have actually been counted," the Court ruled.

"It is in that local precinct after the voter casts his or her ballot that this confidence starts. It is there where it will be possible for the voter to believe that his or her participation as sovereign truly counts," it held.

Mata sa Balota also asked the High Court to declare the Comelec's ban on the use of digital cameras and cellular phones inside polling places as applicable "only until the close of polls," and allow the use of such devices after the closing of the polls "to audit the totality of votes inside the same precinct after karambola or shuffling the VVPAT receptacle."

Section 2(f) of Comelec Resolution No. 10088 prohibits the use of such capturing devices inside polling places "for whatever purpose" -- a "sweeping phrase" Mata sa Balota argued should be declared unconstitutional.

The movement also said it wants the Comelec to "respect the right of 'watchers' to 'take photographs of the proceedings and incidents'" in accordance with election laws.

"Comelec and Smartmatic are under a transcendentally important obligation of implementing an election with functional VVPAT and Digital Signature System," the petition stated.

"The 2010 and 2013 elections had no VVPAT. The 2016 VVPAT is a farce since there is no way for voters to audit it," it added.

Along with 13 individuals, the groups behind the petition are AES Watch, Buklod Pamilya, Capitol Christian Leadership, Citizens' Crime Watch, Connecting Businessmen in the Marketplace to Christ, Latter Rain Harvest Ministries, One Vote Our Hope, and Upper Room Brethren Church Philippines. —LDF, GMA News