Local Absentee Voting Act

Section 1

Whenever used in these Rules, the following words or terms shall mean: a) Commission shall refer either to the Commission en banc or to any of its two Divisions, unless otherwise indicated. b) Automated Election System or AES refers to an election system using appropriate technology, in voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, transmission of election results, and other electoral processes. c) Precinct shall refer to the unit or territory for the purpose of voting. For purposes of AES, it pertains to clustered precincts; d) Official ballot refers to the paper ballot with the pre-printed names of all candidates and with ovals corresponding to each of the names printed. The ovals are the spaces where voters express their choice through marking or shading using a marking pen. e) Picture Image of the Ballot refers to the image of the ballot captured by the PCOS machine at the time the voter feeds his/her ballots, which image is later stored in a memory or removable data storage device attached to the PCOS machines. f) Election Returns refers to the document showing the data of the election, the province, city, municipality and the precinct in which it is held, and the votes in figures for each candidate in a precinct or clustered precincts. g) Electronic Election Returns refers to the copy of the election return in electronic form generated by the PCOS machine that is electronically transmitted to the Municipal or City Board of Canvassers for the official canvass, to the COMELEC Back-Up Server, and to the Server for the dominant majority and dominant minority parties, the citizens' arm authorized by the COMELEC to conduct a parallel count, and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters sa Pilipinas or KBP; h) Printed Election Returns refers to the copy of the election returns printed by the PCOS machine on a paper, and authenticated by the manual signatures and thumbmarks of the members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI). i) Electronic Transmission refers to the act of conveying data in electronic form from one location to the other. j) Canvass Proceedings refers to the proceedings that involve the consolidation of precinct election results at the municipal, city of district level; district election results at the municipal or city level; municipal or city election results at the provincial level; and provincial election results at the national level, be it the COMELEC or Congress. It also include the formal proclamation of the election winners at the various canvass levels. k) Consolidation Machine refers to the machine used at the canvass proceedings to consolidate precinct results, municipal and city results, provincial results, as the case may be, for purposes of getting the total votes of all candidates at a particular canvass level. l) Statement of Votes by Precinct, Municipality, City, District, Province, or Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) Station refers to a document in electronic and in printed form generated by the canvassing or consolidating machines or computers during the canvass proceedings. This document records the votes obtained by candidates in each precinct, municipality, city, district, province, or OAV Station, as the case may be. m) City/municipal/district/provincial certificate of canvass refers to a document in electronic and in printed form containing the total votes in figures obtained by each candidates in a city/municipality/district/province, as the case may be, the electronic form of which is the official canvass result in the aforementioned jurisdictions and is the one electronically transmitted to a higher canvass level. n) Certificate of Canvass and Proclamation refers to the official document in printed form that contains the name of all candidates who obtain the higher number of votes in a particular constituency and certifies to said candidates' proclamation as winners o) Data Storage Device refers to the device where electronic documents are stored and from which said data may be obtained when necessary to verify the accuracy and correctness of election data. It includes the back-up storage device in which authentic electronic copies of said data are also stored. p) Audit Log refers to the document that contains the list of all activities performed by the PCOS machines from the time that it was powered-on, until the time when closed. q) Electronic document refers to information or the representation of information, data, figures, symbols or other modes of written expression, described or however represented, by which a fact may be proved and affirmed, which is received, recorded, transmitted, stored processed, retrieve or produced electronically. It includes digitally signed documents and any print-out or output, readable by sight or other means, which accurately reflects the electronic document. For purposes of these Rules, electronic documents refer to either the picture image of the ballots and electronic copies of the election returns, of statements of votes, of certificates of canvass, and or the other electronic data relative to the processing done by the PCOS machines and the various consolidation machines.