Claim: COMELEC claims that the recently concluded 2022 Elections was successful
Rating: FALSE
Context:
Not even a week after the May 9 elections, and with official canvassing results not even out, COMELEC said that the May 9 elections were successful (Manahan, 2022). The poll body made this claim despite controversies surrounding the elections, prominent of which were VCM breakdowns, widespread disinformation, voter disenfranchisement, and vote-buying cases running into thousands of pesos per voter (Panganiban, 2022; PCIJ, 2022). Almost 50% of complaints validated by Vote Report PH were for VCM errors during election day (Vote Report PH, 2022).
Aside from VCM errors, other issues that plagued the May 9 elections were missing names, long lines, illegal campaigning and red-tagging (De Leon, 2022a; De Leon, 2022b; Fernandez, 2022; Gavilan, 2022; Pazzibugan & Santos, 2022). Despite the secretive nature of vote-buying, Vote Report PH was still able to validate reports of vote-buying in selected regions of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Prior to May 9, there were reports of misuse and abuse of government resources such as the issue regarding the chair of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) endorsing specific candidates in an official voter education forum with students (Kontra Daya, 2022).
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