A Manila priest told AsiaNews on condition of anonymity for security reasons that “COMELEC asked local parish councils to monitor polling stations. Each parish council head gets a special code to supervise polling station presidents. In our parish, we have about a hundred supervisors for 43,000 voters.” Nation-wide, there are about 45,000 supervisors.

“The voting system is too complex and people are afraid the vote might simply fail,” he said. “In every parish, we are testing the electronic machines and training voters on how to use them.”

One of the problems relates to the excess of information each machine has to tally and the high number of voters per station (about 800). Each voter will get a single ballot and will have to pick president and vice-president as well as members of Congress and members of regional, provincial and municipal councils. Once the names are selected, voters have to place the ballot inside a machine, which validates it and registers the information it contains.

According to the priest, tests showed that half of all vote-tallying machines failed to validate the ballot, forcing a repeat. This increases the likelihood of error or fraud.

Moreover, some political groups plan to take advantage of the situation by providing already-set ballots. “During the election campaign, committees tied to political parties have sought to attract voter support. In the poorest areas, instead of trying to explain how to use the voting machine, they have tried to deceive people by handing out t-shirts to men and fans to women with the symbol of the candidate to vote,” the priest said.

“At a local level, we priests together with our parishioners have tried to select and train those people who would engage in clean politics, attentive to the needs of the people,” he added.

“Members of Congress are aware of the influence of the Church and have tried to get the backing of the clergy and religious leaders,” he explained. “The Church however is not into electoral politics. It does however work with the institutions to ensure that we get the best out of people and that voters get free and fair elections.”