The Commission on Elections on Monday said it is eyeing the use of both optical mark reader (OMR) and direct recording electronic (DRE) machines for the automation of the 2010 national elections.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said a technical advisory council recommended the OMR system over DRE. OMR allows voters to vote using a paper ballot, which is then counted by machines while DRE only allows voters to vote using a touch screen or touch pad.

"It's not entirely paperless because if something happens to the electronic system, the paper ballot will allow Comelec to do an actual count or even a recount," Jimenez told radio dzMM.

He said DRE technology could also be used in  a limited capacity during the elections.

He said Comelec expects to start the procurement process by the end of March once Congress passes an P11 billion budget for the automation project.

Jimenez said last week’s Social Weather Stations survey showed 92 percent of Filipinos support an automated election system because they believe it would eliminate massive poll cheating.

He said automated elections using the OMR and DRE systems succeeded on August 11 last year in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). “It is fast and we can hold a proclamation immediately, and there were no election protests in the last ARRM polls.”  

The use of the machines that he mentioned has, however, elicited strong protests from many sectors and individuals, such as Sens. Loren Legarda and Richard Gordon, owing to possible faults in the hardware and software of these systems, as indicated by problems during the pilot use of the systems in the ARMM.

Jimenez acknowledged the Comelec must consider the objections and other factors. “We have biometrics and others, but if we do not have matching systems, we have to use alternative ways. What is important is that we must achieve the one voter, one vote paradigm.” 

“I heard Senator Legarda is concerned with the garbage in, garbage out [issue]. She wants that the voters’ list be cleaned and we are working on the concern raised by the senator,” he said.

Campaign bond to weed out nuisance bets

Jimenez also said Comelec is considering a proposal that requires candidates for national positions to submit a P1 million "campaign bond."

He said the proposal aims to weed out nuisance bets and would save Comelec time and money. "The elections are still aways off. We will certainly look into the constitutional aspect of the proposal," he said.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo  said there is a need for the Comelec to purge the list of candidates because it is costing the poll body a huge sum of money in the printing of ballots containing a long list of aspirants, including nuisance bets.

He said under the current regulations, almost any Filipino can comply with the existing requirements and file their candidacy for various national and local positions.

Melo noted that there are people who just file their certificates of candidacy just so they can see their names in the list of candidates while others do it to “break down” votes of well-known aspirants.

Comelec records showed that a certain Fernando Po has been consistently filing his certificate of candidacy every senatorial election for more than a decade, but usually he is removed from the list for being a nuisance bet.

A namesake of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano also filed his certificate of candidacy in the 2007 senatorial elections. He was eventually disqualified.

Melo said the Comelec hopes to purge not only the list of voters but also the list of candidates for national elections.

“Those who have the capacity to mount a national (campaign) must also be able to put a P1 million bond,” Melo said, adding the Comelec may also require the same for local candidates.

Melo added that the Comelec is also considering coming out with a resolution that would forfeit the P1 million in favor of the poll body for those national candidates who would not be able to obtain at least two percent of the votes.

Aside from national candidates, Melo said, the Comelec also intends to purge the participants in the party-list elections.

“The participants in the party-list elections have gotten out of hand, any small group just claims to be marginalized and run in the polls,” Melo pointed out.

Melo said there are over a hundred party-list groups in the Comelec list.

“This is just a side issue, but we will have to look into this,” Melo said.

Sen. Loren Legarda welcomed the plan of the Comelec to put up a P1-million bond for national candidates to deter nuisance candidates.

“It’s okay to make sure that there are no nuisance candidates. But what we must focus on is automation so we can prevent massive fraud as in the past,” Legarda said.  With Business Mirror and Philippine Star