by Gian Angnged and Billie Mercado

Multiple reports of Vote Counting Machine (VCM) breakdowns hounded the 2022 national and local elections, with machines seen rejecting ballots, failing to issue receipts, or breaking down entirely, resulting in long lines in precincts and significant voting delays.

Poll watchdog Kontra Daya reported that 1,800 cases of VCM failures have been recorded in this year’s polls, as compared to 961 in 2019 and 801 in 2016. 

In response to concerns on faulty VCMs, COMELEC acting spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco told voters to fill up their ballots and leave them with electoral board members to be fed by poll watchers and accredited citizens’ arms. 

Many affected voters, however, argued that this would leave their ballots vulnerable to tampering and prevent them from viewing the receipt that would confirm their votes.

One voter from Pinyahan Elementary School took to Twitter to publicly express their concerns. They shared that voters in the precinct were advised to leave their ballots with the poll watchers, who would supposedly be the ones to feed the ballots to the machine. Yet, they noted the possibility of their votes being tampered with, and called on the COMELEC to resolve the problem. 

In a similar case, VCM errors forced voters in Barangay Teachers Village East to camp out inside their polling precinct until functional machines arrived at around 11 PM, four hours after the scheduled closing of precincts. Some precincts were also left to settle for manual voting in lieu of replacement machines.

The long delays prompted multiple groups and netizens to appeal for an extension of voting hours, with the hashtag #ExtendVotingHours trending on Twitter minutes before the closing of precincts at 7 PM. ABS-CBN news anchor Karen Davila also took to the platform to call on COMELEC to extend the voting period.

“If voters are DISENFRANCHISED because they don’t make the 7pm cut-off, hindi na ito kasalanan ng mga botante o nang pandemya. The Comelec should (be) made accountable. The Filipino people deserve vote counting machines that work,” Davila tweeted.

In the end, COMELEC refused to extend voting hours, with Commissioner Garcia arguing that “nothing justifies extending the voting beyond 7 PM.”

Still, multiple reports of Filipinos staying to cast their ballots after voting hours emerged. For instance, voters at Lagro Elementary School in Quezon City stayed in the precinct until 2:00 AM of May 10, despite having arrived in the morning of May 9. 

Hours later, Garcia announced that this year’s transmission of election returns was the fastest since the Philippines adopted automated voting. He attributed the transmission rate to an “improved and upgraded equipment and system.”

However, the irony of this year’s polls having the fastest transmission rate yet highest number of VCM errors in recent elections was not lost on several Filipinos.

She’s Only Sixteen frontman Roberto Sena questioned how the votes could have even been counted so quickly despite mounting reports of VCM errors.

Pasig Head of Transport Anton Siy also expressed his confusion as to how such results came to be. “I have to think about hardware and maintenance for my job. Thousands of VCMs malfunctioned all day, a main reason because we are running them for the 3rd election now. Best practice is fresh machines. Then suddenly they transmit votes better than the day we got them,” he said. 

For context, COMELEC merely refurbished Smartmatic VCMs that had been in use since the 2010 presidential elections, instead of replacing them. 

The polling body has also been criticized for signing contracts with Smartmatic for this year’s elections, as the corporation has had its fair share of public controversies, including the infamous seven-hour glitch during the 2019 elections.

COMELEC also received flak for partnering with F2 Logistics⁠, a company chaired by Dennis Uy, major campaign donor and longtime friend of President Rodrigo Duterte, for the distribution of election paraphernalia, including VCMs, ballots, SD cards, and election returns.

Another conflict of interest is that six out of the seven COMELEC Commissioners in charge of the 2022 elections are Duterte-appointed. With Duterte’s daughter being the frontrunner in the vice presidential race, many Filipinos cannot help but wonder about the possibility of foul play and dirty tactics in this year’s polls.