FAULTY RECORD-keeping, unclear instructions and a lack of promotions are plaguing this year’s upcoming freshman and special elections.

Repeating the numerous criticisms hurled at the Ateneo Commission on Elections (Comelec) during last February’s general elections, various candidates and student parties are now complaining about the Comelec’s preparations for the said polls, which will be held from August 3 to 5.

Lack of promotions

AJ Elicaño of Partido IsaBuhay IsaGawa – Agila (IBIG-Agila) commended the poll body for starting the entire electoral process early, noting that it was two weeks early compared to last year’s. He said, though, that the information dissemination system for the elections needs to be improved.

“If you look at a lot of the freshman candidates, there are very few of them who ran independently, which means that a lot of the freshman candidates only ran because the political parties and coalitions found them,” he said.

“The fact that there are a few independents, for me, is a sign that info dissemination [wasn’t] enough because if everyone knew, then I think more people would have taken the initiative to run on their own,” he explained.

Elicaño said that the Recruitment Week, held last June 27 to July 1, may have overshadowed the Comelec’s information dissemination campaign.

Missing records, lost candidates

Elicaño said that their biggest complaint was the faulty record-keeping of the poll body. For instance, some candidates paid the required bond, but that did not reflect in the Comelec’s records, thus disqualifying them from the elections.

“We had a couple of [representatives] who did in fact submit their documents on time… but [their names] didn’t show up in the Comelec records,” he said, adding that the same thing had happened to the Alliance of Student Leaders (ASL). However, he said that he is “not sure whether the error is the [Comelec’s] or the candidates’.”

Many of the complaints posted on Comelec’s Facebook page concerned the attendance of candidates’ general assemblies (GAs). To qualify as a candidate, an aspirant must attend one of the three available GA timeslots posted by the Comelec, or at least be able to send an authorized proxy.

Some candidates, however, complained about the sudden changes in venue for the July 13 and 15 GAs. The corrections were posted only last July 11, and several candidates failed to take note of the new venues.

Furthermore, although the Comelec said that there would be notes to direct candidates to the right venue, some aspirants said that there were no such signs.

School of Science and Engineering Central Board Representative Cate Sison responded to one such complaint from a freshman candidate. In her post, she called out the poll body on their chosen means of information dissemination.

“Simply posting corrections of venues online on the week of the Candidate’s GAs itself, even on the first day of Candidate’s GAs, is disappointing,” she wrote. “Who’s to say that freshmen will check this page every so often?”

She added that not all candidates are following Comelec’s Facebook page, rendering them unable to take note of new announcements, especially with the lack of physical promotional materials on campus.

The Comelec replied that they have reminded the candidates to check the page for updates.

“However, acknowledging the probability of candidates not having access to the Internet, we posted signs in the wrong venue redirecting them to the proper room. In addition to that, those who [were in the wrong] room assured us that [candidates] will be redirected to us,” the commission wrote.

New election codes

Maxine Tiutan of ASL said that the Comelec should be lauded for their relatively quick response time. On other aspects, however, the poll body is criticized for being inconsistent in fulfilling its obligations. The candidates’ manual, for instance, gets revised every year, leading some to identify a degree of arbitrariness in Comelec’s rule-making.

Although Tiutan noted that the Comelec keeps adjusting their rules “to try and create the best results,” some issues always need to be ironed out.

Tiutan added that the poll body should prioritize clarifying all instructions first. “If the information on instructions are vague, then [there is no guarantee of] a smooth flow of the elections,” she said. “This could be the likely cause of many misunderstandings and, maybe, even disappointing election results.”

Elicaño meanwhile praised the Comelec for improving the candidates’ manual.

“They’re cutting down on a lot of the things that they used to monitor that I think I found too superfluous,” he said. For instance, the entire party can submit just one design for body tags—used as campaign paraphernalia—for approval, and the approved design may be used by any of the party’s candidates. The Comelec also dropped the requirement of specific spiels from the candidates, asking them to submit only a general outline of their speeches.

On the other hand, the Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (Crusada), which has called for electoral reform since last school year, has criticized the Comelec regarding the candidates’ manual. Although the poll body releases the election guide with revisions annually, Crusada has said in different occasions that the creation of a permanent omnibus election code should be the “immediate priority.”

Elicaño said that he and his party are also supporting calls for an omnibus election code, which will permanently replace the annually revised candidates’ manual. He said that such a code will make it easier for parties and coalitions to prepare for the elections.

“[Candidates won’t] have to wait for the new requirements but instead spend more time preparing, thinking about [their] platforms, discerning what [they] want to run for and just [knowing] that the electoral code is a constant and that [they] don’t have to keep on waiting for it,” he said.

Still in the works

Comelec Commissioner Margaux Alyssa Tan attributed record-keeping inconsistencies to “human error,” and added that the poll body is doing everything it can to ensure that its work is both speedy and accurate. She added that the Comelec core team is meeting every week to better improve the commission’s services.

This year’s freshman and special elections has already been in the works since the Comelec’s planning seminar last May.

Tan added that the Comelec made revisions to last year’s manual in a bid to fix the loopholes in the process. The problem according to her, though, was that some candidates did not know that changes had been made.

At the moment, the 2010 electoral code is still in use, and whenever errors or problematic provisions are found in this code, the Comelec releases resolutions for clarification or rectification.

The 2011 code is still being revised to close any additional loopholes, and is slated for implementation after the freshman elections.

With reports from Lorenzo D. Capinpin, Mara D. G. Cepeda, Jio F. Deslate, Kim B. Luces and AJ M. Santos