“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 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 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 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 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 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.
DAVAO CITY -- Voting in Barangay Centro Agdao is going at a snail's pace. Lines are long and at the rate the automated voting is progressing, observers fear many will not be able to cast their ballots by the time polling centers close. Voters who have agonized waiting in line grudgingly call the PCOS machines "tikas machines", with pun intended. Workers, who still have to report for work and those who find the long lines and the wait much too daunting, have already left the precincts without casting their votes.
By MARYA SALAMAT
The snail's pace in the voting process would create more problems than just the long lines voters have to endure.
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
The May 10 elections have officially began. As expected, the first five hours were far from smooth.
Bangued, ABRA -- In other precincts, people are complaining of the very slow process -- from checking the names of the voters to submitting the ballot to the PCOS machine. Some even went home because they cannot handle the extreme heat. At Precinct #7, BEIs manually collected the ballots. The PCOS machine cannot process the ballots due to defective CF card. The BEI said, they are still waiting for the replacement CF cards to arrive from Manila. A voter told Bulatlat in an interview that the glitches might disenfranchise the votes.
By ANGEL S. AVERIA JR. / EU-CenPEG Project 3030/AESWatch
The cloud of doubt that hovers over the credibility and acceptability of the election results come May 10, 2010 has grown darker.
Technical glitches which hounded the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines in tests that were administered to these are part of a long series of problems that have occurred in the process of holding the first-ever automated elections in the country. By itself, but especially when seen together with the other problems that have occurred earlier, this failure seriously undermines the credibility of the May 10 elections.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Jose Melo must reserve his smile until after the elections. Pagbabago! People's Movement for Change issued the statement as it called for increased public vigilance despite repeated assurances from poll officials that the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines are now running perfectly and that elections will push through on Monday.
“AES stands for Automated Elections Sabotage,” declared Gabriela Women's Party Representative Luzviminda Ilagan, referring to the resulting technical foul-ups during COMELEC tests of the PCOS machines a few days before elections.
The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) warned that election postponement or election failure will benefit no one but Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The group kicked off protest actions in front of the Comelec today against any “no-election and holdover scenario” that it fears could arise from the problems in poll automation.
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