Chong warns of poll fraud this May!

RESPECTED anti-poll fraud advocate, Atty. Glenn Chong, has warned that millions of voters could end up being victims of ‘targeted disenfranchisement’ in the coming May 9, 2022 elections thru the ‘incompetence’ and lack of technical knowledge of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the machinations of its “riding-in-tandem” (RIT) partner, Smartmatic.

At the regular ‘Meet the Press/Report to the Nation’ media forum of the National Press Club (NPC) last Friday, March 18, 2022, Chong, a former representative of Biliran province, said the COMELEC, by itself, cannot competently handle the country’s automated election system.

“I don’t mince words; I know what I am talking about… Hindi ang COMELEC ang makakapagtakbo ng dayaan kung wala itong Smartmatic.

“They are riding in tandem…Itong Commission on Elections, wala silang capacity to run an automated election on their own. That is a hard fact,” Chong said. “’Uto-uto talaga sila ng Smartmatic.”

Chong alleged that money has changed hands between the COMELEC and Smartmatic over the former’s continued partnership with the latter despite the many controversies hounding their partnership over the years. “When money talks, even the angels listen,” he said.

Aside from accusation of bribery, Chong also pointed to the poll body’s initial admission that upwards to 5.2 million of ballots out of the 49.7 million ballots already printed are “defective.”

As such, these ballots could not be used during election day leading to the ‘disenfranchisement’ of the same number of voters, if distributed, warned Chong.

(In a statement last March 17, 2022, the COMELEC claimed the number is ‘only’ 105,530 defective ballots).

The number of printed ballots is equivalent to 73.7 percent of the 67.4 million ballots the COMELEC said are needed to be printed for the coming elections.

But Chong, citing confidential information, said the COMELEC also intends to print an “extra 10 ballots per polling precinct” that is also equivalent to more than 1.6 million ballots equivalent to the same number of potential additional votes during election day.

Issues on the ‘SD cards,’ ‘defective’ VCMs too

At the hearing of the Senate Electoral Committee chaired by Sen. Imee Marcos last March 9, 2022, another issue that has cropped up was the COMELEC’s admission that it has also already ‘configured’ most of the ‘security digital’ (SD) cards to be used by the ‘VCMs’ (vote counting machines) that would be installed in polling precincts to count the votes for candidates on election day.

The SD cards contain the computer program that would actually run the VCMs.

As well as the ballots, the COMELEC admitted the SD cards were configured without public knowledge (see also Pinoy Exposé, Volume 3, Issue No. 11).

Based on past election results, Chong noted that the SD cards, based on the program provided by Smartmatic, cannot also be expected to turn out the actual number of votes cast to a particular candidate, citing the election protest of Camarines Sur third district congressional candidate, Luis Villafurte against Gabriel Bordado Jr.

Bordado was declared the winner in that election but which was immediately contested by Villafurte, claiming electoral fraud.

In a report by the ‘revisors’ of the House Electoral Tribunal (HRET), Chong noted that while Smartmatic’s VCM in one precinct showed that Villafuerte only garnered 143 votes. However, the actual ballots showed him garnering 439 votes.

On the other hand, the VCM showed Bordado garnering 327 votes despite the actual ballots showing him only getting 151 votes.

Of the total 100 VCMs and ballot boxes ordered opened by the HRET, it was found that 13,213 votes from the report by 75 of the VCMs were actually not counted in Villafuerte’s favor while 7,738 votes were added to Bordado.

Chong said rather than explaining the huge disparity in the vote result as produced by the VCM and the actual votes, the COMELEC had decided to no longer conduct hearing on Villafuerte’s protest.

Chong further noted that incidentally, Villafuerte, who died at age 86 last August 9, 2021, was an ally of current leading presidential candidate, former Sen. Ferdinand ‘Bongbong/BBM’ Marcos Jr. while Bordado is an ally of Vice President Leni Robredo.

Marcos had protested the victory of Robredo in the 2016 vice presidential contest, claiming electoral fraud.

In early 2017, after filing his electoral protest against Robredo, Marcos revealed that half of the 26 SD cards that are supposedly empty were found to contain ‘preprogrammed’ data when tested.

Aside from the questionable integrity of the SD cards, Chong said another way by which voters could become victims of “targeted disenfranchisement” is thru the VCMs themselves, many of whom may not actually work during election day.

He noted the VCMs are only good for two elections and were supposed to have ended its reliability after the 2019 polls.

In the 2016 presidential elections, Chong said some 300 VCMs broke down but this significantly increased by a factor of 10—to more than 3,000 VCMs in 2019.

He noted that if the same factor holds true, upwards to 30,000 VCMs can malfunction in the coming elections, leaving millions of voters unable to exercise their right of suffrage.

Further, Chong said the VCMs have “inherent security defects” as they also count the votes of fake ballots because of their lack of internal security features.