WITH the Supreme Court (SC) having ruled in a decision unanimously approved by 13 Justices, the Comelec will, we pray, now at last follow the Automated Election System (AES) Law (RA 9369. The High Court specifically wishes the Comelec to implement the law’s requirement that voting process include the printing of the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) or Voter’s Receipt (VR).
The SC ruled, 13-0, to grant the petition of former Sen. Richard Gordon, Chairman of Bagumbayan – Volunteers for a New Philippines, Inc., and it ordered the Comelec to enable the VVPAT feature of the Vote Counting Machines (the new names of the notorious PCOS machines) and comply with the minimum system capabilities of the machines stipulated in Sections 6(e), (f) and (n) of Republic Act No. 9369. These minimum capabilities are for there to be the verified paper audit trail, for there to be a method to audit the system (verify the correctness of reported and transmitted election results) and for the Filipino voter to be given a system to find out if the machine recorded his/her vote accurately.
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