BACOLOD City – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) in this city has 56 contingency automated counting machines (ACMs) on standby for the upcoming May 12 elections.
Atty. Revo Sorbito, acting Comelec-Bacolod City officer, confirmed during the conduct of the final testing and sealing (FTS) in Bacolod City National High School (BCNHS) on Wednesday, May 7, that they have not encountered any issues in the deployed ACMs.
This city has 48 polling centers, consisting of 398 polling precincts, with 355,880 registered voters.
“So far, so good. We’re praying that on election day everything will go smoothly,” said Ashi Barbas, chairman of the Board of Election Inspector (BEI) of precinct C-44 of the BCNHS, after they conducted the FTS of the ACMs.
Sorbito also said that they have enough number of contingency machines in case there will be technical problem. But he is hoping that the ACMs for May 12 will be 100 percent working.
Aside from the contingency machines, there are also deployed technical support staff in every polling center who will be in-charge if technical issues occur.
“Subong wala sang technical problem, naga-expect kita nga wala man problem sa election day,” Sorbito said. “However, there is a possibility. But we have our technical staff, we have command center that monitors in case there will be problem.”
Sorbito also assured that there will be no problem on the battery of the machines because it will last for 14 hours and the power provider also assured them there will be no power interruptions on election day.
As of this writing, the ACMs are being kept in the office of the school’s supervising officials, and will only be taken out again during the election day. Police personnel are also assigned to guard and secure the machines until the end of the elections.
Additionally, he reminded the voters to come and vote early, particularly the vulnerable sectors including the persons with disabilities (PWDs), senior citizens, and pregnant women because the precincts will prioritize them from 5 a.m. until 7 a.m. The regular voting will start from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
He also announced that bringing of liquid like water inside the polling precincts is prohibited./PN
