Word: namfrel
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...Concepcion, chairman of NAMFREL, a500,000-member citizens' volunteer pollwatchinggroup, said in an interview there was "not muchrampant cheating," but said many voters wereconfused in some areas because they could not findtheir names on posted lists and some pollingstations didn't open on time...
...Laurel, who issues this warning repeatedly at opposition rallies, is not alone in voicing the fear that Ferdinand Marcos will somehow rig the Feb. 7 elections to ensure his victory. The U.S., equally concerned, has insisted that the Marcos government officially accredit the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), an independent group that helped prevent widespread fraud in the 1984 parliamentary elections, to monitor the balloting. In addition, President Reagan last week appointed a delegation of lawmakers and private citizens to observe the vote. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, agreed to take part...
...NAMFREL has devised "Operation Quick Count," a monitoring network that relies on sheer numbers. It has recruited 150,000 Filipinos to oversee each step of the elections. Operation Quick Count will start early on election day: voters are being urged to turn up at 7 a.m., when the polls open, to make certain the ballot boxes are empty. Last week, however, the Commission on Elections said it would not allow foreign reporters or "unauthorized" observers to come within 150 ft. of polling places. Says a U.S. expert who traveled to the Philippines last month to study the election process...
...biggest danger of fraud, according to NAMFREL Chairman Jose Concepcion, occurs as the padlocked ballot boxes are transported from rural precincts to the municipal halls for canvassing. "On the way, the ballot transporters can make as many stops as they want for snacks, inviting the inspectors along," he says. "Meanwhile, the ballots could be switched or substituted." To prevent such irregularities, Concepcion wants convoys of five to ten cars to accompany the ballot boxes...
...opposition knew that it would need every ounce of persistence to maintain that gain as the count dragged on. On the day after the election, NAMFREL estimated that the government was losing in 97 constituencies. As the days passed, that figure steadily dwindled. Though the decline was explained in part by late-arriving returns from rural areas where the K.B.L. is strongest, it inevitably aroused suspicions that the government was rectifying its losses by shamelessly altering the returns. Whatever the final tally, Filipinos may now at last have some kind of check on Marcos' one-man, one-party rule...