Commission on Elections officials reported that the testing and sealing of Precinct Count Optical Scan machines went with almost no glitches in the provinces of Antique, Aklan, Ilolo, Cebu and Leyte.
Lawyer Ian Lee Ananoria, Aklan election supervisor, said the testing and sealing of the machines had been completed in five of the province's 17 towns as of Saturday morning and the process was expected to be completed for the rest of the province by the end of the day. The province has been allotted 492 PCOS machines.
He said the results were accurate and only two machines had defective cards.
There were also no reports of defects and problems in the machines tested in Antique as of Saturday noon. The testing in the province was expected to last until Sunday.
The testing and sealing in Iloilo provinces started Saturday morning and was expected to last also until Sunday.
In Iloilo City, the testing and sealing will be conducted on Sunday morning, according to election assistant supervisor Jonathan Sayno.
In Cebu, election officials declared Saturday that they were 80 percent ready for the elections on Monday. This after some towns and cities successfully conducted testing and sealing of the PCOS machines, with perfect results.
Cebu provincial election supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said they successfully tested the PCOS machines with the reconfigured flashcards in Carmen, Sta. Fe, Malabuyoc, Naga City, Toledo City, Lapu-Lapu City, and Bantayan.
Ronnie Amistoso, election coordinator in Bogo City, said the testing was successful, although they encountered minor glitches like the mismatch serial numbers of the PCOS machines and flashcards in two barangays and stickers they could not find to seal the flashcards.
Castillano said other areas in Cebu including the cities of Cebu and Mandaue will conduct the testing and sealing Sunday.
In Tacloban City, the testing of the PCOS machines also went smoothly, according to city elections officer Rosemarie Ann Polistico.
Showing posts with label PCOS machine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PCOS machine. Show all posts
Saturday, May 8, 2010
With 39 hours to go, only 52% of PCOS machines in place
Updated official monitoring reports obtained by ABS-CBN News show that a substantial number of precincts may still not have voting machines, ballots, and compact flash cards when polls open on Monday.
As of 9 a.m. of May 8 or 39 hours before Election Day, only 51.9% of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines were in polling centers nationwide, 64% of bundled official ballots had been delivered from the National Printing Office (NPO) to the provincial/city treasurer’s office, and 14.5% of reconfigured compact flash cards had been delivered.
Despite the delays, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner still expressed confidence that all the election paraphernalia would be in the polling centers when polls open at 7 a.m. on May 10.
In an interview on ABS-CBN’s Failon Ngayon on Saturday, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said they will be able to deliver all the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, official ballots, and reconfigured compact flash cards in polling centers by Monday.
“Ito po ay aming made-deliver 100% bago mag May 10. As a matter of fact, ang sabi sa amin ng aming mga technical people at mga kasamahan sa Comelec, Smartmatic kasama po, by tomorrow, lahat po ay nasa mga hubs and polling centers,” Sarmiento said.
Meanwhile, Comelec-Smartmatic’s monitoring of the deliveries of the various election paraphernalia, as of 5:51 p.m., May 8, or 30 hours before Election Day had the following figures:
Memory cards: 90%
PCOS machines: 48.8%
Ballot boxes: 45%
Canvassing units: 71.8%
Tested and sealed PCOS machines: 11.2%
Resort to manual count
On Saturday, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez dismissed fears over the delayed delivery of the PCOS machines.
"'Pag PCOS machines ang pinaguusapan, siguradong meron na pong lahat (If we talk about the PCOS machines, we're sure that all of them will be deployed)," Jimenez said in an interview over ANC's Headlines on Saturday.
He, however, admitted that some of the machines were still in the provincial hubs, and not in the polling precincts. He explained that the machines could not distributed from the hubs without the new configured flash cards.
He said the machines had to be tested and sealed before they could be sent out to polling precincts.
Jimenez also admitted that the compact flash cards may not reach around 5% of the total number of precincts by the time polls open at 7 a.m. on Monday.
However, he said that it should not also be a cause for alarm.
"We have contingency procedures to be followed," he said.
Jimenez explained that voting can start even without the flash cards, and the ballots can be set aside by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs). The ballots can be inserted into the PCOS machines as soon as the cards arrive.
He said the arrival of some of the flash cards may be delayed until Monday afternoon.
If the flash cards or the PCOS machines fail to arrive in certain polling centers, he said the Comelec can come up with an en banc resolution to conduct a manual count of the votes.
As of 9 a.m. of May 8 or 39 hours before Election Day, only 51.9% of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines were in polling centers nationwide, 64% of bundled official ballots had been delivered from the National Printing Office (NPO) to the provincial/city treasurer’s office, and 14.5% of reconfigured compact flash cards had been delivered.
Despite the delays, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner still expressed confidence that all the election paraphernalia would be in the polling centers when polls open at 7 a.m. on May 10.
In an interview on ABS-CBN’s Failon Ngayon on Saturday, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said they will be able to deliver all the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines, official ballots, and reconfigured compact flash cards in polling centers by Monday.
“Ito po ay aming made-deliver 100% bago mag May 10. As a matter of fact, ang sabi sa amin ng aming mga technical people at mga kasamahan sa Comelec, Smartmatic kasama po, by tomorrow, lahat po ay nasa mga hubs and polling centers,” Sarmiento said.
Meanwhile, Comelec-Smartmatic’s monitoring of the deliveries of the various election paraphernalia, as of 5:51 p.m., May 8, or 30 hours before Election Day had the following figures:
Memory cards: 90%
PCOS machines: 48.8%
Ballot boxes: 45%
Canvassing units: 71.8%
Tested and sealed PCOS machines: 11.2%
Resort to manual count
On Saturday, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez dismissed fears over the delayed delivery of the PCOS machines.
"'Pag PCOS machines ang pinaguusapan, siguradong meron na pong lahat (If we talk about the PCOS machines, we're sure that all of them will be deployed)," Jimenez said in an interview over ANC's Headlines on Saturday.
He, however, admitted that some of the machines were still in the provincial hubs, and not in the polling precincts. He explained that the machines could not distributed from the hubs without the new configured flash cards.
He said the machines had to be tested and sealed before they could be sent out to polling precincts.
Jimenez also admitted that the compact flash cards may not reach around 5% of the total number of precincts by the time polls open at 7 a.m. on Monday.
However, he said that it should not also be a cause for alarm.
"We have contingency procedures to be followed," he said.
Jimenez explained that voting can start even without the flash cards, and the ballots can be set aside by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs). The ballots can be inserted into the PCOS machines as soon as the cards arrive.
He said the arrival of some of the flash cards may be delayed until Monday afternoon.
If the flash cards or the PCOS machines fail to arrive in certain polling centers, he said the Comelec can come up with an en banc resolution to conduct a manual count of the votes.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Source code firm Dominion sheds light on voting glitch
A Canada-based software firm who leased the source code for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines for the May 10 Philippine polls has shed light on the glitch that caused the machines to incorrectly read the ballots.
Sean Dean, product manager of Dominion Voting Systems, said the company only found out about the voting machine glitch during the final testing and sealing of PCOS machines in several municipalities last Monday.
Dean said Dominion representatives received clearance from the Commission on Elections to investigate the program files, which allowed them to isolate the problem in the compact flash cards.
"We reacted immediately by getting permission from Comelec to go to the warehouse to start doing some debugging and testing. It only took about an hour before we figured out what the problem was," he told ABS-CBN News.
Poll machine supplier Smartmatic-TIM earlier said wrong configurations in the compact flash cards affected the automated count for the local positions. Smartmatic Southeast Asia president Cesar Flores said an adjustment in the ballot design for the local elections affected the machine count.
Dean said Dominion representatives were able to adjust the configurations in the compact flash cards, which are needed to count the votes for more than 2,200 local municipalities and districts in the May 10 polls. He said the new configurations were finished in the morning of Wednesday.
In response to doubts on the integrity of the program and automation system, Dominion said it is staking its name that nobody interfered or had any access in the generation of the program files and configuration process.
"At no point was there any outside party involved in the configuration of the ballots and the election files. It was all done by ourselves and supervised only from a viewing perspective by the Comelec but other than that they didn't have access to the station. They didn't touch it. It was all strictly done by us," he said.
During the interview, Dean remained confident that 76,000-plus compact flash cards will be configured Friday, just 3 days before the election. He conceded, however, that the next challenge is delivering the flash cards to all municipalities in time for Monday's polls.
Dean denied previous articles accusing Dominion of questioning Smartmatic's contract with Comelec. He said the Dominion-Smartmatic partnership remains strong, as shown by the company's presence during the entire bidding process for the automation contract.
The Dominion official said fraud or manipulation of votes is impossible once the ballot enters the PCOS. He said once the PCOS reads the ballot, there is no way for the vote or count to be changed because of the 128-bit encryption, which is the same protective encryption used by banks.
Sean Dean, product manager of Dominion Voting Systems, said the company only found out about the voting machine glitch during the final testing and sealing of PCOS machines in several municipalities last Monday.
Dean said Dominion representatives received clearance from the Commission on Elections to investigate the program files, which allowed them to isolate the problem in the compact flash cards.
"We reacted immediately by getting permission from Comelec to go to the warehouse to start doing some debugging and testing. It only took about an hour before we figured out what the problem was," he told ABS-CBN News.
Poll machine supplier Smartmatic-TIM earlier said wrong configurations in the compact flash cards affected the automated count for the local positions. Smartmatic Southeast Asia president Cesar Flores said an adjustment in the ballot design for the local elections affected the machine count.
Dean said Dominion representatives were able to adjust the configurations in the compact flash cards, which are needed to count the votes for more than 2,200 local municipalities and districts in the May 10 polls. He said the new configurations were finished in the morning of Wednesday.
In response to doubts on the integrity of the program and automation system, Dominion said it is staking its name that nobody interfered or had any access in the generation of the program files and configuration process.
"At no point was there any outside party involved in the configuration of the ballots and the election files. It was all done by ourselves and supervised only from a viewing perspective by the Comelec but other than that they didn't have access to the station. They didn't touch it. It was all strictly done by us," he said.
During the interview, Dean remained confident that 76,000-plus compact flash cards will be configured Friday, just 3 days before the election. He conceded, however, that the next challenge is delivering the flash cards to all municipalities in time for Monday's polls.
Dean denied previous articles accusing Dominion of questioning Smartmatic's contract with Comelec. He said the Dominion-Smartmatic partnership remains strong, as shown by the company's presence during the entire bidding process for the automation contract.
The Dominion official said fraud or manipulation of votes is impossible once the ballot enters the PCOS. He said once the PCOS reads the ballot, there is no way for the vote or count to be changed because of the 128-bit encryption, which is the same protective encryption used by banks.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Wrong data in CF cards may cause PCOS reading errors
An IT consultant on Tuesday said wrong configurations of the compact flash cards in the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines may have caused glitches in reading votes for the local races.
IT expert Lito Averia of AES Watch said the failure of PCOS machines to read votes for local positions during mock PCOS tests in various municipalities could be traced to the design of the ballots. Averia said the Commission on Elections decided to change the listing of the names on the ballots from a vertical list to a horizontal list.
Averia said the PCOS machines are configured to read which ovals are shaded on the ballot based on the "intersections of the longitude and latitude of the ballot."
"The machine will expect to check if the ovals are shaded. I think that set of data was not properly configured or properly prepared. The machines read the ballots in 2 phases, the national and local. When the machines read the local, I think it got lost somewhere. It's not the configuration of the machine. The machine is somewhat confused because you're giving it the wrong directions. It is looking here when it should be looking somewhere else," he told ANC's Dateline Philippines.
Averia said the wrong configurations affected only the local positions and did not seem to affect the national positions.
An abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak report on Monday said vote counting machines in at least 4 localities failed to correctly read the ballots and tally the votes during mock polls, affecting local positions and raising concerns that a scenario is being created by some quarters to revert the conduct of the polls to the manual system. (Read: Local bets get zero votes as PCOS machines malfunction)
Some candidates for local positions in Pasay City; Makati City; Sto. Tomas, Batangas; and Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro got zero votes despite the fact that their poll watchers accomplished the ballots, and should assure them of as many votes in the results.
The malfunctioning of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines spared no political parties and didn't appear to target particular positions.
The malfunctions prompted Comelec to postpone all further testing and sealing of the PCOS machines throughout Luzon (including the National Capital Region), Visayas and Mindanao to May 7. (Read: Errors force Comelec to reset PCOS testing)
Averia said Smartmatic-TIM has to recall all compact flash cards that have been deployed and reconfigure them to read votes for the local races in all 1,630 municipalities and districts in the country.
"They have to prepare the proper data for each ballot configuration. The Comelec has 1,630+ ballot configurations corresponding to the number of municipalities and districts. They have to prepare the correct data and put that into the flash cards. That is easy to do. The biggest challenge is logistical, recalling all those compact flash cards that were deployed, bringing them back to Smartmatic for reconfiguration and then delivering them back to the polling precincts. That would be the major challenge."
Averia said the cards have to be in proper containers, not exposed to water, dust or magnetic fields. "Dust particles can get into the contact points. Smartmatic is using industrial grade flash cards, unlike the consumer grade," he said.
He added that IT professionals had earlier proposed a parallel manual count because there was not enough time to prepare for the electoral exercise.
IT expert Lito Averia of AES Watch said the failure of PCOS machines to read votes for local positions during mock PCOS tests in various municipalities could be traced to the design of the ballots. Averia said the Commission on Elections decided to change the listing of the names on the ballots from a vertical list to a horizontal list.
Averia said the PCOS machines are configured to read which ovals are shaded on the ballot based on the "intersections of the longitude and latitude of the ballot."
"The machine will expect to check if the ovals are shaded. I think that set of data was not properly configured or properly prepared. The machines read the ballots in 2 phases, the national and local. When the machines read the local, I think it got lost somewhere. It's not the configuration of the machine. The machine is somewhat confused because you're giving it the wrong directions. It is looking here when it should be looking somewhere else," he told ANC's Dateline Philippines.
Averia said the wrong configurations affected only the local positions and did not seem to affect the national positions.
An abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak report on Monday said vote counting machines in at least 4 localities failed to correctly read the ballots and tally the votes during mock polls, affecting local positions and raising concerns that a scenario is being created by some quarters to revert the conduct of the polls to the manual system. (Read: Local bets get zero votes as PCOS machines malfunction)
Some candidates for local positions in Pasay City; Makati City; Sto. Tomas, Batangas; and Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro got zero votes despite the fact that their poll watchers accomplished the ballots, and should assure them of as many votes in the results.
The malfunctioning of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines spared no political parties and didn't appear to target particular positions.
The malfunctions prompted Comelec to postpone all further testing and sealing of the PCOS machines throughout Luzon (including the National Capital Region), Visayas and Mindanao to May 7. (Read: Errors force Comelec to reset PCOS testing)
Averia said Smartmatic-TIM has to recall all compact flash cards that have been deployed and reconfigure them to read votes for the local races in all 1,630 municipalities and districts in the country.
"They have to prepare the proper data for each ballot configuration. The Comelec has 1,630+ ballot configurations corresponding to the number of municipalities and districts. They have to prepare the correct data and put that into the flash cards. That is easy to do. The biggest challenge is logistical, recalling all those compact flash cards that were deployed, bringing them back to Smartmatic for reconfiguration and then delivering them back to the polling precincts. That would be the major challenge."
Averia said the cards have to be in proper containers, not exposed to water, dust or magnetic fields. "Dust particles can get into the contact points. Smartmatic is using industrial grade flash cards, unlike the consumer grade," he said.
He added that IT professionals had earlier proposed a parallel manual count because there was not enough time to prepare for the electoral exercise.
Smartmatic admits error in configuring PCOS flash cards
Human error led to the failure of precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to correctly read votes for local positions during Monday’s mock polls, an official of poll machine supplier Smartmatic-TIM admitted Tuesday.
Smartmatic Southeast Asia president Cesar Flores said the company failed to properly configure compact flash disks of the PCOS machines to properly read the votes for the local races because of a difference in the layouts of the national and local ballots.
He said the PCOS machine incorrectly read the local ballot “because the local ballot has double spacing. If you look at the national [ballot], they are all single spaced.”
“If you mark the first row, it will be read correctly but for some reason, the configuration is telling the machine that the candidate on the second row is actually on a third row [because of the space],” he said in a press conference at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office in Manila.
Flores said Monday’s mock polls showed that the PCOS machines could only read votes for local candidates at the top of the lists.
“It’s a line on the configuration that was supposed to say ‘Major double-space.’ It’s a human error when the configuration was done and it has already been detected,” he said.
Flores said Smartmatic-TIM has received permission to test its reconfigured compact flash disks on the more than 2,200 layouts of ballots for the nationwide elections on May 10.
Under the new automated system, ballots for each municipality and district in the country will have a specific layout to show the list of candidates for local positions.
Flores said Comelec gave Smartmatic-TIM an extra 2 to 3 ballots per layout, which will be shaded and tested with the new configuration file.
He added, however, that if errors continue to happen in all the layouts, the company will be forced to recall all 76,000 flash disks that have already been deployed.
“We have 2,200 layouts if you mix municipalities and districts. We only need to test the 2,200 layouts. However, if all the jurisdictions will be affected, that means we will have to reprogram all 76,000 compact flash disks,” he said.
He added that the company has 240 people in Cabuyao, Laguna that could work on the reconfiguration of the flash disks immediately.
'Changed ballot design led to error'
In an interview on ANC on Tuesday, IT expert Lito Averia of AES [Automated Election System] Watch said the failure of PCOS machines to read votes for local positions during mock PCOS tests in various municipalities could be traced to the design of the ballots.
Averia said Comelec decided to change the listing of the names on the ballots from a vertical list to a horizontal list.
Averia said the PCOS machines are configured to read which ovals are shaded on the ballot based on the "intersections of the longitude and latitude of the ballot."
"The machine will expect to check if the ovals are shaded. I think that set of data was not properly configured or properly prepared. The machines read the ballots in 2 phases, the national and local. When the machines read the local, I think it got lost somewhere. It's not the configuration of the machine. The machine is somewhat confused because you're giving it the wrong directions. It is looking here when it should be looking somewhere else," he told ANC's Dateline Philippines.
Averia said Smartmatic-TIM has to recall all compact flash cards that have been deployed and reconfigure them to read votes for the local races in all 1,630 municipalities and districts in the country.
"They have to prepare the proper data for each ballot configuration. The Comelec has 1,630+ ballot configurations corresponding to the number of municipalities and districts. They have to prepare the correct data and put that into the flash cards. That is easy to do. The biggest challenge is logistical, recalling all those compact flash cards that were deployed, bringing them back to Smartmatic for reconfiguration and then delivering them back to the polling precincts. That would be the major challenge," he said.
Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin, co-chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Elections, said the configuration error did not mean that votes that were supposed to go to one candidate were added to another.
“If you had the misfortune of being an [Ernesto] Mercado or [Junjun] Binay, then it wouldn’t read [your votes] but it would read the [Erwin] Genuino which is G. It didn’t read the vote of Mercado and give it to Genuino,” he said.
An abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak report said vote counting machines in at least 4 localities failed to correctly read the ballots and tally the votes for local positions during Monday’s mock elections.
Some candidates for local positions in Pasay City; Makati City; Sto. Tomas, Batangas; and Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro got zero votes despite the fact that their poll watchers accomplished the ballots. The malfunctioning of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines spared no political parties and didn't appear to target particular positions.
The malfunctions prompted Comelec to postpone all further testing and sealing of the PCOS machines throughout Luzon (including the National Capital Region), Visayas and Mindanao to May 7.
The poll body also recalled a total of 7,555 memory cards or flashcards deployed in Metro Manila, which were supposed to be used in the May 10 elections.
Smartmatic Southeast Asia president Cesar Flores said the company failed to properly configure compact flash disks of the PCOS machines to properly read the votes for the local races because of a difference in the layouts of the national and local ballots.
He said the PCOS machine incorrectly read the local ballot “because the local ballot has double spacing. If you look at the national [ballot], they are all single spaced.”
“If you mark the first row, it will be read correctly but for some reason, the configuration is telling the machine that the candidate on the second row is actually on a third row [because of the space],” he said in a press conference at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office in Manila.
Flores said Monday’s mock polls showed that the PCOS machines could only read votes for local candidates at the top of the lists.
“It’s a line on the configuration that was supposed to say ‘Major double-space.’ It’s a human error when the configuration was done and it has already been detected,” he said.
Flores said Smartmatic-TIM has received permission to test its reconfigured compact flash disks on the more than 2,200 layouts of ballots for the nationwide elections on May 10.
Under the new automated system, ballots for each municipality and district in the country will have a specific layout to show the list of candidates for local positions.
Flores said Comelec gave Smartmatic-TIM an extra 2 to 3 ballots per layout, which will be shaded and tested with the new configuration file.
He added, however, that if errors continue to happen in all the layouts, the company will be forced to recall all 76,000 flash disks that have already been deployed.
“We have 2,200 layouts if you mix municipalities and districts. We only need to test the 2,200 layouts. However, if all the jurisdictions will be affected, that means we will have to reprogram all 76,000 compact flash disks,” he said.
He added that the company has 240 people in Cabuyao, Laguna that could work on the reconfiguration of the flash disks immediately.
'Changed ballot design led to error'
In an interview on ANC on Tuesday, IT expert Lito Averia of AES [Automated Election System] Watch said the failure of PCOS machines to read votes for local positions during mock PCOS tests in various municipalities could be traced to the design of the ballots.
Averia said Comelec decided to change the listing of the names on the ballots from a vertical list to a horizontal list.
Averia said the PCOS machines are configured to read which ovals are shaded on the ballot based on the "intersections of the longitude and latitude of the ballot."
"The machine will expect to check if the ovals are shaded. I think that set of data was not properly configured or properly prepared. The machines read the ballots in 2 phases, the national and local. When the machines read the local, I think it got lost somewhere. It's not the configuration of the machine. The machine is somewhat confused because you're giving it the wrong directions. It is looking here when it should be looking somewhere else," he told ANC's Dateline Philippines.
Averia said Smartmatic-TIM has to recall all compact flash cards that have been deployed and reconfigure them to read votes for the local races in all 1,630 municipalities and districts in the country.
"They have to prepare the proper data for each ballot configuration. The Comelec has 1,630+ ballot configurations corresponding to the number of municipalities and districts. They have to prepare the correct data and put that into the flash cards. That is easy to do. The biggest challenge is logistical, recalling all those compact flash cards that were deployed, bringing them back to Smartmatic for reconfiguration and then delivering them back to the polling precincts. That would be the major challenge," he said.
Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin, co-chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Elections, said the configuration error did not mean that votes that were supposed to go to one candidate were added to another.
“If you had the misfortune of being an [Ernesto] Mercado or [Junjun] Binay, then it wouldn’t read [your votes] but it would read the [Erwin] Genuino which is G. It didn’t read the vote of Mercado and give it to Genuino,” he said.
An abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak report said vote counting machines in at least 4 localities failed to correctly read the ballots and tally the votes for local positions during Monday’s mock elections.
Some candidates for local positions in Pasay City; Makati City; Sto. Tomas, Batangas; and Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro got zero votes despite the fact that their poll watchers accomplished the ballots. The malfunctioning of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines spared no political parties and didn't appear to target particular positions.
The malfunctions prompted Comelec to postpone all further testing and sealing of the PCOS machines throughout Luzon (including the National Capital Region), Visayas and Mindanao to May 7.
The poll body also recalled a total of 7,555 memory cards or flashcards deployed in Metro Manila, which were supposed to be used in the May 10 elections.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
PCOS machines arrive in Batanes
A cargo ship carrying 36 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines and other equipment for the automated elections is about to dock at the port of Basco, Batanes.
The ship MV Savers of the Batanes Multi-Purpose Cooperative sailed from Manila for two days, before it reached this island more than 800 kilometers away at past 11 am on Tuesday.
Local officials and representatives of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Smartmatic, the forwarding firm Ace Logistics, the Philippine Coast Guard, and the Philippine National Police are expected to supervise the unloading of the machines and then escort them from the port to a temporary warehouse.
The equipment will be stored at a room in a local school before they are taken to polling centers three days before May 10. The provincial election supervisor of Batanes said the warehouse will be secured all day and night.
Security is not a problem, he said, because the town is small and all vital installations like the provincial police office, the municipal hall, and the provincial capitol are near the warehouse.
Out of the 36 machines, only 30 will actually be deployed. Six of them are emergency or spare machines which will be used if any of those deployed breaks down or malfunctions.
As of posting, the MV Savers was still queuing a couple of kilometers from the sea port, waiting for a ship ahead of it to unload its stuff before it unloads the machines and other cargo.
The ship MV Savers of the Batanes Multi-Purpose Cooperative sailed from Manila for two days, before it reached this island more than 800 kilometers away at past 11 am on Tuesday.
Local officials and representatives of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Smartmatic, the forwarding firm Ace Logistics, the Philippine Coast Guard, and the Philippine National Police are expected to supervise the unloading of the machines and then escort them from the port to a temporary warehouse.
The equipment will be stored at a room in a local school before they are taken to polling centers three days before May 10. The provincial election supervisor of Batanes said the warehouse will be secured all day and night.
Security is not a problem, he said, because the town is small and all vital installations like the provincial police office, the municipal hall, and the provincial capitol are near the warehouse.
Out of the 36 machines, only 30 will actually be deployed. Six of them are emergency or spare machines which will be used if any of those deployed breaks down or malfunctions.
As of posting, the MV Savers was still queuing a couple of kilometers from the sea port, waiting for a ship ahead of it to unload its stuff before it unloads the machines and other cargo.
Friday, March 19, 2010
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