Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto S. Brillantes Jr., today presented the final draft of the COMELEC Report to the President and Congress of the Philippines on the Conduct of the 2013 National and Local Elections, to the Chairman of the House Panel of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System (JCOC-AES), Representative Mel Senen Sarmiento.
According to the Report, 40,223,016 voters actually voted in the 2013 elections, out of 52,014,648 registered voters, for a 77.3% turn-out. According to officials of the COMELEC, this was within the normative range of voter turn-outs for Philippine elections.
The Report also revealed that out of 78,166 Precinct Count Optical Scanners used in the 2013 elections, only 1,297 units actually had to be replaced, or a replacement rate of only 2%. The Report also acknowledged that various factors hampered the electronic transmission of results from the precinct to the Municipal Canvassing Level. These factors included poor signal strength in the affected areas, inclement weather, and power outages.
“In places where the electronic transmission of results were hampered, manual uploading of results was resorted to, in accordance with the COMELEC’s contingency plans,” COMELEC spokesman James Jimenez said.
The Report concluded:
On the whole, the May 13, 2013 National, Local, and ARMM elections went smoothly, albeit not without some issues which contributed to a certain degree of apprehension, particularly among stakeholders. All those issues were quickly resolved and ultimately had no significant effect on the election processes. Thus, on the whole, the outcome of the elections has been widely considered credible and acceptable to general public.