Noynoy Aquino votes, finally

After more than four hours, Liberal Party standard-bearer Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III finally cast his vote at Precinct 175A here.

At 10:00 a.m on Monday, Aquino joined the line of voters outside the polling precinct at the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Eelementary School in San Miguel Tarlac but only managed to vote at around 2:00 p.m.

His vote, however, along with hundreds of others, will not yet be counted because the precinct count optical scanning (PCOS) machine remained “shut down.”

Election personnel allowed the voters to shade the ballot when the machine broke down at around 9:00 a.m.

There was no official statement yet from election supervisors on how they would count the votes.

But one of them said they might be forced to do manual counting after another PCOS machine in another precinct also allegedly broke down.

Aquino's sisters, Ballsy and Pinky, also cast their votes.

Like the senator, the sisters also patiently waited for hours in the line.

An excited female resident did not seem to mind the delay and on seeing Aquino in the line said, "Sana pala pumila na lang ako [Perhaps, I should just have waited in line]."

PCOS technicians were unable to fix the malfunction after the machine “shut down” at around 9 a.m. due to an alleged paper jam.

Rodrigo Jacinto, a PCOS technician, immediately arrived at the poll precinct after he was informed of the problem and managed to restart the machine.

"Nag-shut down lang po. May paper jam kasi [It just shut down. There’s a paper jam]," Jacinto later told reporters.

But minutes later, the machine broke down again, with Jacinto claiming this time, “Napagod [It’s exhausted].”

Another election inspector announced that 112 people had voted when the machine stopped.