Vote counting machines for 2025 polls hurdle shading threshold test

Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting National Coordinator Arwin Serrano (left) and Commission on Elections Chairman George Erwin Garcia (right) oversee the “stress testing” of automated counting machines for the 2025 midterm  elections at a warehouse in Biñan, Laguna on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. (INQUIRER.net/John Eric Mendoza)

LAGUNA, Philippines — Instead of usually shading the entire circle beside candidates’ names on official ballots, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia only put dots on it to cast his mock vote.

Garcia is testing the new and approved 15 percent shading threshold by the Comelec during the conduct of the acceptance test and “stress testing” of automated counting machines (ACM) at the election body’s Biñan warehouse on Wednesday.

The threshold refers to the minimum shading on a ballot circle recognized as a valid vote.

Garcia then fed his ballot to the ACM.

The voting receipt from the ACM later showed that the tiny dots put by Garcia on the circle beside candidate’s names were recognized by the machine. 

Thus, the ACM proved to be capable of scanning Comelec’s designated threshold.

“The intention of the voter should be read by the machine,” Garcia said in a press conference after the demonstration.

“During the test earlier, I just put a dot and did not spread the ink on the ballot circle. Whether it (the dot’s threshold) was at 15 percent or higher than 15 percent, it was counted,” he said.

Previously, the lowest shade threshold was at 25 percent. Less than that, the vote would be considered “ambiguous.”

Now, Garcia said it’s only either “vote” or “no vote.”

Disputes on ballot shadings became the cause of electoral protests in the past.

“In manual counting, the dots are being counted, it is being claimed [as valid votes] by either the protestor or protestee,” Garcia noted.

The most notable case involved President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos and former Vice President Leni Robredo, who claimed they won the 2016 vice presidential elections.

Marcos launched an electoral protest that led to a massive recount by the Supreme Court, which is sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.