Comelec official warns over hi-tech cheating
CEBU CITY--An official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has alerted voters and election personnel to be on guard for election cheating using high-tech gadgets like mobile phones equipped with cameras.
Lawyer Lionel Castillano, legal officer of the Comelec in Central Visayas, said voters who will sell their votes could use camera-equipped cell phones in taking pictures or video clips of the filled-up ballot and showing these as proof of whom they voted for to the vote-buyer.
But Castillano said they cannot stop any voter from bringing a cell phone when he or she votes on May 14.
"There is no law or rule that prohibits the bringing of cell phones inside the polling precincts," Castillano told around 30 mostly Cebu-based journalists who attended a training-workshop on election reporting conducted by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and the International Federation for Election Systems (IFES) last Saturday.
Castillano said members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) can only confront a voter on the use of cell phones when it is actually used to violate election rules and law.
"We can only appeal but cannot force the voters not to use or bring them," said Castillano.
He said the privacy of voters should also be safeguarded while the voter is filling-up the ballot and so it would be improper for election officials to watch over the voter closely while he/she is voting.
While the traditional forms of cheating and vote-buying are still being practiced, the advent of high-tech gadgets has changed these practices.
The common forms of fraud during voting include assuming the identity of another voter and voting in his/her name and accompanying a voter to the voting booth to influence a voter in casting his vote for a particular candidate, according to a list provided by the NUJP and IFES
Cheating was also done with the use of carbon paper, paraffin or duplicating device to disclose the content of the ballot to the "buyer," the "intimidator" or the "leader".
Election fraud was among the main issues and concerns raised by the journalists and journalism students from Cebu, Bohol, Antique and Capiz who attended the training.
The other issues include threats and physical danger to journalist during the coverage of the elections and bribery of journalists by candidates.
The training was the 13th conducted by the NUJP all over the country since February.