Together with other organizations, Kontra Daya once again held a picket protest in front of the Commission on Elections national office in Intramuros, Manila on May 5. The group denounced the glitches in the online voting for overseas Filipino workers, the agency’s slow action on Red-tagging and other campaign violation complaints, and electoral fraud.

According to the group, these mounting issues compel Filipinos to be more vigilant on election day on May 12 and during the vote counting. They emphasized that people must guard against other forms of fraud.

Migrante International reported last week that Comelec significantly failed to provide sufficient information regarding the new online voting system. They also recorded various technical problems that could result in disenfranchising OFWs’ right to vote.

Numerous cases of candidates violating election laws have also been recorded. These include vote-buying, widespread discrimination, and Red-tagging of progressive parties and candidates.

According to Kontra Daya, they recognize Comelec’s summoning of some candidates who made misogynist statements and were involved in vote-buying, but they lament that punishment for Red-taggers remains slow.

“We should also take it upon ourselves as citizens to safeguard our votes and watch out for any other forms of fraud on election day,” Kontra Daya convenor Danilo Arao said.

Amid these anomalies, the group again urged Comelec to consider implementing manual voting at the precinct level combined with electronic transmission or a hybrid election system. They said this would help prevent possible electronic manipulation of results.

The group said that Comelec’s refusal to heed this recommendation undermines the public clamor to verify votes at the precinct level and boost suspicions that results could be tampered by just relying on automated counting and transmission.