Author Topic: Elections in Bohol will be Automated  (Read 1089 times)

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Elections in Bohol will be Automated
« on: February 06, 2010, 09:54:33 PM »
By the Bohol Chronicle

The counting of votes in all 1,333 clustered precincts in the province will be done in full automation during the May 10 elections.

This was the assurance made by provincial election supervisor Atty. Eliseo Labaria even as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) braces for potential glitches that may force the poll body to hold manual counting in 30-percent of polling precincts in some parts of the country.

Labaria bared to the Chronicle that he expects all 1,333 precinct count optical scanner (PCOS) machines to be delivered here in Bohol in the last week of April including all election paraphernalia which will still be distributed to the towns.

"We expect the machines and poll paraphernalia to arrive on time so our schedule to deliver to the towns will not be delayed," Labaria said.

The Comelec official disclosed that manual vote-counting may only be done in some critical areas in Mindanao, but not here in the province.

However, in the event Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM), which bagged the contract to supply PCOS to the Comelec, fails to deliver all the machines here, the provincial Comelec office is ready with contingency measures when precincts have to resort to manual counting.

But Labaria is optimistic that manual counting will not happen here. "Just in case, reverting to manual counting would not affect the results of the elections," he said.

Extra PCOS machines will also be allotted for Bohol in case of technical breakdowns, which is possible since the supplier experienced a 1.5% failure in their tests.

"Election will go on even if the poll counting machines would fail - there are technicians on standby, there are back-up machines to replace defective ones, and we are ready to revert to the manual counting if the situation calls for it," Labaria explained.

Many poll automation machines have yet to be delivered and tested by Smartmatic-TIM which currently shipped only 7,200 units out of the 82,200 PCOS machines needed nationwide for the May elections.

According to Labaria, by the end of February the Comelec expects all 82,200 units ready for testing and to be shipped out to the provinces.

For security reasons, the Comelec will distribute the machines on the last week of April so they need only a few days to secure the PCOS units deployed in the precincts.

Atty. Labaria said they have inspected all voting precincts to ensure that the machines are not exposed to tampering and will not be stolen.

SIGNAL

Save for only a few precincts, the Comelec official sees no problem in acquiring signal from mobile phone network providers, which will be used in electronically transmitting results from polling precincts to the canvassing centers in each municipality.

In areas where there is no signal from the three major cell phone network providers, Labaria said the Comelec will be using the Broadband Global Arena Network (BGAN) satellite transmission so data from the precincts can be sent to canvassing centers.

Each PCOS machine will be accompanied by a technician from Smartmatic who will ensure the smooth operation of the units and troubleshoot if there are technical problems.

However, the technicians will have limited access on the programmed functions of the machines to prevent tampering.

Power failures will not affect the automated counting as the machines can go on full operation for 12 hours running with its own battery.

TRAINING, VOTERS INFO

According to Labaria, voters are not expected to encounter problems with the machine as they only have to feed their official ballot after they finish shading the circles opposite the names of candidates they vote for.

The Comelec will conduct trainings and demonstrations to election officers from February 18 to 28 while teachers and members of the board of election inspectors (BEI) will also undergo a one-month training starting March 1.

Labaria foresees no procedural glitches even with the number of voters in each clustered precinct.

The Comelec clustered up to five precincts for the poll automation, with a maximum number of 1,000 voters in each cluster.

Labaria explained that voting centers will open starting 7 a.m. and will close at 6 p.m. However, voters within 30-meters of their polling precinct during the closing time will still be allowed to cast their vote.

The provincial Comelec office registered a total of 732,696 voters in the province. The first congressional district has a total of 238,025 registered voters; second district with 238,684; and the third district with 255,987.

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