Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Senatorial candidate Richard “Dick” Gordon asked the Supreme Court to order the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to print ballot receipts during the May elections.
Gordon wants the Comelec to implement the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) under the amended Automated Elections Law, which he authored.
“The Comelec has been a ‘recidivist’ in violating Republic Act No. 9369. The last two automated elections in the country have not been credible because of its failure to implement the safeguards such as presenting the source code for review, the use of digital signatures was disabled and the random manual audit was announced,” Gordon said in a press release on Monday (February 22).
“Because of this continued failure, the integrity of the elections have not been restored as the automated elections law intended. This has got to stop.”
Gordon argued that without a receipt, results from the vote-counting machines would be open to doubt.
“A voter verified paper audit trail consists of physical paper records of voter ballots as voters have cast them on an electronic voting system,” he said. “The voter-verified part refers to the fact that the voter is given the opportunity to verify that the choices indicated on the paper record correspond to the choices that the voter has made in casting the ballot.”
The Comelec unanimously decided not to implement the verified paper audit trail system because it may allow vote buying.
It also said that it would extend the voting period by 5 to 7 hours.
Gordon said the VVPAT system is required under Sec. 6 of the Automated Elections Law and its implementation is mandatory, saying it is “a critical and indispensable security feature of the automated voting machine.”
He added the inclusion of this was previously and flagrantly violated by Comelec during the 2010 and 2013 elections.
He warned Comelec officials may be impeached because of their decision.
CNN Philippines correspondent Ivy Saunar contributed to this report.
