LESS than a month before the May 13 midterm elections, an official of the Commission on Elections in Davao (Comelec 11) said they are 85-percent ready and that they are in the final stage of finetuning all the preparations for the political exercise.

Comelec spokesperson Krisna Caballero, in an interview on Tuesday, April 16, said they conducted a final briefing for the electoral boards, the Department of Education Supervisor Official (Deso) staff, and Deso technical support staff.

Deployment of the vote counting machines (VCMs), official ballots and some of the other accountable and non-accountable forms are also being discussed.

Caballero said they are coordinating with the F2 Logistics on the delivery of the VCMs from Manila, which they plan to distribute before the end of April.

“In Davao, about 400 at least one VCM each and meron tayong contingency VCM for just in case magkaroon tayo ng problema on election then meron tayong ma-pull-out na VCM anytime,” she said.

They will also have their regional joint security to gather all the concerned personnel. A final testing will also be done before the scheduled date of election to test the VCMs' capability and detect discrepancies.

Based on the consolidated Quarterly Progress Report (QPR) on October 25, 2018 Election Registration Board (ERB) hearing in Davao region, this year’s election has a total of 3,026,393 registered voters.

Of this figure, Davao City has the highest number of registered voters at 984,604 followed by Davao del Norte with 605,643, Compostela Valley (462,942), Davao del Sur (425,586), Davao Oriental (365,496) and Davao Occidental with 182,122.

There are a total of 1,162 barangays with 19,701 established precincts in the region and 3,777 clustered precincts.