Update as of 3:30 p.m.

Based on 464 verified reports nationwide, anti-fraud Kontra Daya and VoteReportPH said that the first seven hours of today’s election have been marred with disinformation, red-tagging, malfunctioning vote counting machines, and disenfranchisement to name a few. 

Nearly 20% of the reports gathered by VoteReportPH pertain to VCM errors, accounting for 19.3 percent. Other reports refer to vote-buying (14.3 percent), election process (10.1 percent), disinformation (10.1 percent) and black propaganda (9.2 percent). 

In a separate report of Kontra Daya-Southern Tagalog, 48% of the monitored and verified cases (55 out of 115) are on VCM errors while 36% are on disenfranchisement (41 out of 115). Our chapter also reported cases of harassment, illegal campaigning and vote buying. 

Kontra Daya also documented red-tagging incidents which include posters indicating that progressive partylists are part of the underground communist movement. Red-tagging during elections, particularly those perpetrated by the military, violates the non-partisan nature of law enforcement agencies during the election season.  These posters were found in Angeles City, Mandaue City, Pasig City and Quezon City. 

There were also cases of vote-buying done en masse in some communities. As of this writing, Kontra Daya has documented 30 such cases.

There are also reports of delayed opening of polling centers, with voters queuing for hours. Based on Kontra Daya’s monitoring, it would take more than an hour for voters to complete the casting of their votes. Among the common issues monitored are paper jams and rejected ballots, as well as the breakdown of VCMs that further delayed voting. There had been cases where voters were asked to leave their ballots and just let the election inspectors feed them into the VCMs once these are repaired or replaced.  Kontra Daya stressed that voters should be given the option to feed the ballots into the machines, and receive their receipts, as stated in the current guidelines. It is the duty of the Comelec to ensure that defective VCM’s are repaired or replaced at the soonest possible time as voters wait to feed their ballots. We cannot blame voters for refusing to leave their ballots to the BEI because of the general distrust with the automated polls. 

Voters also complained of the unorganized conduct of polling lines. In Gregorio Perfecto HS in Tondo, Manila, the waiting line stretched around the block. Kontra Daya obtained a 9 minute video that showed how long the line had been outside the school. Kontra Daya had earlier called for the extension of voting hours as it may lead to voter disenfranchisement. 

Kontra Daya is encouraging voters to submit their reports on social media using hashtags #VoteReportPH and #KontraDaya. We shall try our best to submit our final assessment of the conduct of the 2022 polls immediately after the closing of voting hours. ###