Five days before the elections, petitions were made to postpone the elections due to technical malfunctions with the
electronic voting machines. On May 7, 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the petitions, affirming the vote would go ahead as planned. Several cities and provinces encountered several problems, postponing the election. In
Caloocan, voting was delayed as the box of ballots delivered to clustered precinct 599 in the city's Pajo district contained ballots for a clustered precinct in
Sampaloc, Manila.
Election-related violence Prior to the end of the filing of certificates of candidacy, the COMELEC had anticipated several areas to be named as "election hotspots". On November 23, 2009, the entourage of the wife of
Buluan, Maguindanao vice-mayor
Esmael Mangudadatu who ran for provincial governor, including journalists, were
abducted and killed in the province's town of
Ampatuan. Before she was killed, Mangudadatu's wife blamed provincial governor
Andal Ampatuan Jr. as the culprit. Ampatuan Jr. was later arrested. After several arms and military vehicles were seized in Ampatuans' properties and government installations, President Arroyo declared martial law in parts of the province not controlled by the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front on December 4. On December 28, 2009, a candidate for councilor died, and two incumbent officials were wounded in an ambush in
Dingras, Ilocos Norte. The gunmen fired at the convoy including
barangay chairwoman Joen Caniete, who was running for councilor under the
Nacionalista Party; the wounded included a sitting councilor and a provincial board member. In
Sorsogon, Julio Esquivias, a Nacionalista candidate for councilor in the town of
Casiguran, died due to a gunshot wound after he was shot by an unidentified gunman. In a command conference by the
Armed Forces of the Philippines,
Philippine National Police and the COMELEC, 14 election "hotspots" were identified. They were
Abra,
Ilocos Norte,
Masbate and
Nueva Ecija in
Luzon,
Samar (Western Samar),
Eastern Samar and
Antique in the
Visayas, and
Basilan,
Sulu,
Maguindanao,
Lanao del Norte,
Lanao del Sur,
Sarangani, and
Zamboanga Sibugay in
Mindanao. Worsening private armed violence was a serious security concern which had the capacity to undermine the 2010 elections. Even though a commission was already formed to dismantle private armies, skeptics were unconvinced that the government could have succeeded in this task as it had a poor track record of dealing with the ongoing problem of internal violence. Before election day, a bomb exploded at 1:20 a.m. in Ampatuan,
Maguindanao. No casualties were reported. In Conception,
Iloilo, armed men fired at the
Liberal Party headquarters. No casualties were reported. During election day, three bombs exploded at a polling precinct at Pakpak elementary school in
Marawi City,
Lanao del Sur. No casualties or injuries were reported. Another bomb exploded in
Zamboanga Sibugay, killing three people. Two bombs exploded at
Mindanao State University where several polling precinct were clustered. An
NK2 grenade exploded at
Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao. No casualties reported. On the same day, at 12:00nn (PST), a shooting incident happened in the same area between the rival candidates. Two innocent persons were killed. As of 1:30pm (PST) fourteen casualties were reported due to election-related violence. at 2:25pm (PST), a shooting incident in a barangay in
Maguindanao caused the local cancellation of the elections.
Constitutionality of the elections Many concerned civil society groups including the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), Philippine Computer Society (PCS), and Global Filipino Nation (GFN) protested the illegality and unconstitutionality of how the elections were conducted, particularly with implementing safety measures against fraud and cheating. In an interim report by
GFN 2010 Election Observers Team released on May 27 titled "Foreign Observers Challenge Election Legitimacy", they presented arguments questioning the May 10, 2010 elections summarized below: • The election results transmitted from the precincts do not have digital signatures of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) • The number of disenfranchised voters is sufficient to greatly affect the results of the elections. • The Automated Election System (AES) was implemented without the appropriate field testing, and law-specified testing in actual elections. • The source code review was not completed and initial findings were not addressed. • No audit was done on the AES prior to the elections. There was only a mandated random manual audit which was not yet done at the time the report was written (May 27, 2010). • Several voter and security features were disabled prior to elections. Many different groups also echoed the same sentiments like Kaakbay Partylist in its critique of the May 10, 2010 polls. They also questioned the removal of digital signatures
Removal of digital signatures While Republic Act 9369 states that
"The election returns transmitted electronically and digitally signed shall be considered as official election results and shall be used as the basis for the canvassing of votes and the proclamation of a candidate.", the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) issued Resolution 8786 on March 4, 2010, which became the basis for the decision to remove digital signatures which the COMELEC ruled as no longer necessary. Three Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) were originally required to put in their iButton Key for the results to be digitally signed before transmission and make it official. But because of the issuance of COMELEC Resolution 8786, BEIs were directed to press "No" when asked by the PCOS machines to digitally sign the files for transmission. In the joint committee meeting at
Batasang Pambansa, Senator Enrile asked the COMELEC officials why they removed the use of the digital signatures. Cesar Flores, Smartmatic Asia Pacific president, said
“The voting machine has a digital signature in itself which is also corroborated in the card and the password that is provided to the BEIs. The BEIs when they sign the password, they encrypt the result, and the result is digitally signed.” (
Sic) Kaakbay Partylist released its critique of the election on June 6, 2010. The group cited complaints regarding the removal of main security features and verifiability of votes and also answered the arguments of those given by the COMELEC officials:
"On March 4, 2010, Comelec issued Resolution 8786 dated March 4, 2010, essentially disabling the use of digital signatures. Thus, the electronically transmitted votes from the precincts no longer bear digital signatures. Several excuses were given by Comelec ranging from PCOS machine signatures being equivalent to digital signature (which of course is not true); use of digital signature will require another P1 billion (as if digital feature is not included in the P7.1-billion contract); reducing transmission time (how less than one minute signing digitally will reduce much a transmission of about 30 to 60 minutes?); and the PCOS i-button and BEI Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) are equivalents (of course, not)". ==Candidates==