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THE MAY 2004 ELECTIONS: ASSESSMENTS
National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL)
Picking
Up the Election Returns
Of the 216,382 election returns available, NAMFREL picked up approximately
90 percent of the documents and tabulated 82.98 percent of the returns
or 179,564 precinct reports.
Reasons for failure to receive all Election Returns
- Not
all Boards of Election Inspectors turned the Election Returns
over to NAMFREL.
- NAMFREL
was not able to send in volunteers into an area for various reasons
including the lack of volunteers or the risk of entering a "hotspot."
Reasons why not all Election Returns in NAMFREL's possession
were tabulated
- Some
returns were unreadable, some contained errors, some were missing
key information, and some were with missing pages.
Nonetheless, the operation for 2004 was the largest in NAMFREL's
history in terms of percentage covered and actual number of returns
picked up and tabulated. While it was not our fastest in terms of
speed, its broad coverage more than made up for this shortcoming.
Initial Problems With the Certified Voters' List
- Comelec's
Voter Validation program to prepare new voters lists using a biometric
system failed.
- Comelec
missed several of its own self-imposed deadlines to publicly post
the list or to close the voters' books before election day. In
the weeks immediately prior to election day, it became increasingly
clear that the lists would never be posted on time.
- Among
the lists which were made publicly available, encoding errors
were found where names, dates of birth, addresses, and consequently
precinct assignments were mixed up. Comelec decided to go with
several lists on election day, resorting to the old voters' list
when all else failed. The result was some confusion on election
day when some voters could not find their names on lists in their
old, regular voting centers and were thus unable to vote.
Voter Turnouts and Fill-up Rates
- The
confusion over the voters' lists may have had an effect on the
actual voter turnout on election day but not enough to constitute
a so-called "massive disenfranchisement" as some allege.
- Normally,
Presidential elections have around 80 percent voter turnout rates.
For the 2004 elections, voter turnout rate was estimated at 74.3
percent, indicating that disenfranchisement may have run as high
as two million voters rather than the 900,000 that exit polls
had suggested.
- Among
those who voted, three percent abstained from voting for a President
while nine percent abstained from voting for a Vice president.
Voters also elected an average of 7.56 Senators (e.g. between
7 and 8 out of possible 12).
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