“The old PCOS machines, numbering 81,896, will now be useless scraps of metal. By approving the new lease deal, COMELEC just wasted P10 billion ($217 million) worth of taxpayers’ money, excluding costs for storage and maintenance.” – Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon said.
By BENJIE OLIVEROS
Election automation was able to fix what is happening inside the precincts, however, it was not able to solve the politics of guns, goons, and gold outside of it.
By CHERYLL D. FIEL / Davao Today
The City Board of Canvassers in Davao lowered the threshold of votes necessary for the winning candidates to be proclaimed winners. The Board proclaimed the winners five hours after it resumed counting of votes on Wednesday, May 12.
By GERMELINA LACORTE / Davao Today
Carmen Gultiano, a voter in one of the precinct clusters at the Daniel Aguinaldo National High School, came out of her precinct tired, agitated and unable to hide her frustrations after spending six hours just to vote. Gultiano arrived at her precinct at eight o’clock in the morning and was only able to vote at two thirty in the afternoon.
By CHERYLL D. FIEL / Davao Today
It was not the machine glitches that many people were worried about but the poll clerk’s hunt for names of registered voters and other verification procedures that slowed down the voting process in the recently-concluded elections.
By JETTY AYOP-OHAYLAN AND MARIETTA BASTE-HERNANI / Davao Today
In Marahan Central Elementary School in the city’s third district, the voting pace was slow, and even those who went before the poll centers opened waited for five hours for their turn to vote. The school had two precincts with 1,000 total voters. By noon, only 30 percent of the total number has cast their votes.
By RITCHE T. SALGADO
With reports from JOSEPH BACUD
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Region 7 boasted of an 80 percent voter turnout. Pagbabago! Cebu said a number of votes were disenfranchised due to the Comelec’s inability to foresee simple and preventable problems.
MANILA — The transmission of election results did well in Quezon City High School in Kamuning, Quezon City. The transmission of results only took one to two minutes per transaction. The Board of Elections Inspectors told Bulatlat on Monday night that there were no major problems encountered with the Precinct Count Optical Scan machine, unlike in other areas.
By RITCHE T. SALGADO
As in most parts of the country, long queues and technical glitches affected the conduct of elections in Central Visayas. In Cebu, there were reports that indicated that only 50 percent of voters have been accommodated by 6:45 p.m.
By RAYMUND B. VILLANUEVA
Nothing seems to have changed in the conduct of elections in Lanao.
By CARLOS H. CONDE
Despite the promise of order that computerization brings, the conduct of the elections in Maguindanao province and other areas in Mindanao leaves much to be desired.