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| Senate President Vicente Sotto III / photo file from Inquirer |
It seems that Senate President Vicente Sotto III is already
fed up that for the fourth time, the election was smeared of glitches because
of non-working VCMs and low-quality Security Data (SD) cards which cause
controversies.
He said it was about time for the country to stop using
Smartmatic services for the elections.
Smartmatic International provides vote counting machines
(VCMs) used in the past three automated elections since 2010 polls.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel III also raised on Tuesday
the possibility of a Senate probe amid alleged anomalies on the voting process.
“Glitches are enough to call for a congressional
investigation. Why are we still having all these glitches? Cannot Comelec
(Commission on Elections) anticipate them?” Pimentel said, according to a
report by GMA News
Meanwhile, Senator Risa Hontiveros called on the Commission
on Elections (Comelec) to give detailed
explanation behind the malfunction of VCMs.
“This is our fourth automated elections. Mishaps like this,
especially those that deprive our people of the right to suffrage, are
unacceptable,” she said.
The poll body has reportedly pointed to the aging VCMs as
reason for its failures in this 2019 elections.
Comelec paid P8.1 billion to buy total of 97,517 VCMs
from Smartmatic in 2018 after leasing out the same machines in 2016
elections. (With a report from PNA)
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