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The speed of the canvassing of votes, their quick transmission and the eventual early proclamation of local winners was what caught many candidates unprepared in the last election, especially those on the losing side. With most of them with a mindset still operating on manual mode, the losers could not come up quick enough with sufficient evidence or proof of fraud to back-up their claims of irregularity in the automatic electoral system. Thus, they end up being labelled as “sore losers”, like the typical Pilipino politician who never loses, but is always cheated out of victory.

Still, there is no denying that technical glitches, discrepancies in the results revealed by the manual random audit could have undermined the veracity of the results of the elections thus exchanging speed with the accuracy of the results themselves. Obviously, speed of results cannot substitute for the authenticity of the results if we are to uphold the democratic principle of the rule of the majority. But this brings us back to ground zero where unless adequate proof or evidence is presented, allegations of fraud cannot stand by themselves to put the results into question.

And so many of the losers and their followers in the last election will have to live with the reality of electoral defeat in the automated elections. The effects of the technical glitches, unpreparedness of the COMELEC and its private partners Smartmatic-TIM could have cut both ways, disenfranchising supporters of both the winners and the losers. To claim otherwise without presenting sufficient proof or evidence will bring us nowhere.

Now, maybe is the right time to let the results in the local elections take its course. The quality of the results will never satisfy all those involved in the elections, especially the losing candidates. The quality of victory of the successful candidates will always be tainted by allegations of fraud and other irregularities. But unless these claims are backed up by solid proof and evidence, we have no choice but to move on and prepare better for the next elections.

And not in terms of technical preparations alone. There is always the more substantial preparation of getting the plurality, if not the majority, of the citizens’ votes as a prerequisite to victory.Without such solid preparations, all talk of doing away with trapos and advancing the politics of change will remain in the realm of wishful thinking. # nordis.net