CANVASSING. Teachers acting as board of election tellers do manual canvassing in totaling the votes during the elections in 2013. (davaotoday.com file photo by Tyrone A. Velez)
DAVAO CITY —- The Commission on Elections claims it is fully ready for election day.
Comelec Regional Director Atty. Rey Sumalipao told Davao Today, “We have contingency measures in place for every problem. We already identified those problems based on our experience in 2010 and 2013.”
He said they are sure that they have foreseen all problems that might arise and have prepared for it.
On Thursday, the Comelec will hold the final testing and sealing of the vote counting machines that will be used on the election day.
Davao region has a total of 2,659,704 registered voters and 4,108 clustered precincts in 1,442 voting centers.
A vote counting machine or VCM is more advanced than the precinct count optical scan or PCOS machines used during the automated elections in 2010 and 2013.
Sumalipao said the Comelec has “contingency machines” reserved if ever there will be problem with the VCM.
“In the rate of 1-10, naa ta sa 10 ang scale of preparedness. And of course sa readiness sa pagrespond sa makina, lahat yan nasa 10 (In the rate of 1 to 10, we are in 10 in the scale of preparedness. And of course in the readiness to respond to the machine (if there are problems), all of that are rated 10),” he said.
Sumalipao said that the FTS’ objective is for the pubic to know how the machine operates. He said the all the machines have already been tested .
“We have already tested all of those machines. In fact, before the machines were released to polling places testing were already done for a number of times, in fact we have the so called mock elections,” he said.
Sumalipao said the final testing and seaThe ling will involve 10 voters in a polling place who will cast their ballots. He said the voters were randomly chosen and that Comelec asked the polling centers to prepare them days before.
“We want to build up the confidence of the people, the confidence of the voters that the machine will operate transparently,” he said. (davaotoday.com)
