A poll watchdog on Monday, May 9, noted that the 2022 National and Local Elections (NLE) has one of the “worst” vote-counting machine (VCM) failures by far.

“Yung aberya sa VCM matagal na po nating namomonitor yan pero masasabi namin na ang taon na itong 2022 election cycle isa sa pinaka malala talaga at hindi ito katanggap-tanggap (We have been monitoring the anomaly from VCM for a long time but we can say that this 2022 election cycle is the worst and this is unacceptable),” Kontra Daya convenor Danilo Arao said during an interview over Super Radyo DZBB.

Comelec said that there were 1,800 defective VCMs reported but these have been addressed already. This number, the group said, is expected to affect an average of 1.1 million votes.

Volunteers on the ground have videos as proof that the lines in polling precincts are extremely long due to the breakdown of VCMs making the voting process longer than usual.

This, Arao said, “greatly compromises the safety protocols” amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

He explained that the VCM failure is caused by those machines not being brand new. While there should be at least one technician from Smartmatic per VCM, Arao said that is not being followed throughout the years based on their monitoring.

“Ang Smartmatic napaka notorious po n'yan mula pa noong 2010 nananawagan na talaga na i-block list po 'yan (Smartmatic is really notorious since 2010 and we have been calling for it to be blacklisted),” Arao said.

Meanwhile, Arao strongly urged voters to check their receipts if the machine had read their votes correctly. He also denounced the signing of a waiver to allow election staff to feed their ballot without their presence.

He appealed for the extension of voting hours but the Comelec maintained that voting will end at 7 p.m. on May 9.

Kontra Daya is an election watchdog based in the Philippines. (Luisa Cabato)