Marcos to ask Comelec for system audit of AES

MANILA – The camp of vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. is set to ask the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to open the Automated Election System for a systems audit after uncovering irregularities while tabulating results of the May 9 elections based on the Certificates of Canvass.

Atty. Jose Amor Amorado, Head of the BBM for VP “Quick-Count” center said that according to their IT (Information Technology) experts, only a systems audit will show if the election results were not affected by the change in the script done to the server.

“By tomorrow May 18 in the early afternoon 1 p.m. we are filing a strongly-worded demand letter to the Comelec regarding the opening of the system for a systems audit because doing so will finally put to rest whether or not the changing of the ‘?’ to ‘ñ’ that they tampered with resulted to something else,” he said.

Among others, Amorado cited the report of the Provincial Board of Canvassers of Laguna seeking permission from the Comelec to convene anew to “correct the discrepancies” in the manually-uploaded election results reflected in their provincial COC.

In that report, Precinct No. 13423 which represents the town of Rizal in Laguna listed was 12 votes each for Senators Allan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero and Gringo Honasan and 9 votes each for Senator Marcos, Rep. Leni Robredo and Senator Antonio Trillanes.

Amorado also noted the “highly irregular” number of undervotes in the Vice Presidential race.

“We have collated unusually high percentages of under votes for the Vice Presidential race in all parts of the country – from Region 1 to the National Capital Region and all the way to Region 13 and the ARMM (Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao)” Amorado added.

He explained that “under vote” means that the voter did not select any candidate. In contrast an “over vote” means the voter chose more than the number of candidates for the position. In both instances, the vote is not counted.

“Overall, there were more than 3.3 million undervotes in the 2016 Vice Presidential derby and in a highly contested race, we consider the same highly suspicious,” Amorado expressed.

Amorado said they are in possession of evidence of other irregularities but they are still collating and validating them. He said these would be made public as soon as they get the necessary clearance.

He added that Marcos would also send representatives to the hearing of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System that will be investigating the unauthorized change in script of a transparency server for automated elections.

“We would like to thank everyone who has been helping us in this campaign especially those who are risking their lives just to reveal vital information on the conduct of the elections. Rest assured that we will not stop until the true will of the people prevails,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amorado also said that based on their own count of 100 COCs out of a total of 108, Marcos received 13,506,005 votes compared to Cong. Leni Robredo who got 13,346,009, or a difference of 117,939 as of 3:15 p.m. Tuesday.

“That’s why we are optimistic we will win this election,” he said.

Likewise, Amorado welcomed the announcement of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) that it would terminate its quick count soon.

Marcos had asked the COMELEC to have the PPCRV end its quick count, as done in the previous elections, to prevent confusion or doubt in the official results of the official canvass in case there is a noted variation between the two counts.