CEBU was one of the pilot areas where the Voters Registration Verification Machine (VRVM) was introduced.
Under this system, members of the Board of Election Inspectors wouldn’t have to manually check the Commission on Elections (Comelec) voters’ list.
It was an additional tool to eradicate flying and “ghost” voters, said Acting Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Jerome Brillantes.
Brillantes said the function of the VRVM was to determine whether the voter was real.
He said this was the reason mock elections were held in certain areas nationwide.
In Cebu, the mock election was held Saturday, Jan. 19, in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City and in the southern town of Santander.
The procedures used in the mock election will be the same ones used during the midterm elections in May.
That means last Saturday’s results would be transmitted to the City Board of Canvassers, which would transmit these to the Provincial Board of Canvassers (PBOC). The PBOC would then transmit the results to the National Board of Canvassers.
“It (VRVM) is like a tablet with a fingerprint scanner. Remember that the registration of voters requires biometrics. This VRVM will verify and confirm that the voter is the real one,” Brillantes said.
He said the Comelec would provide every clustered precinct with one that would be used by the electoral board to verify the voter’s indentification.
If the VRVM discovered that the voter had no biometrics, that meant he/she did not belong to that particular precinct.
“We are happy that Cebu is included as one of the pilot areas, especially since we have more than three million voters. Cebu is the only province in the Visayas to be included in the VRVS pilot areas,” Brillantes said.
Brillantes said the Comelec still relied on the computerized voters’ list that was posted outside the precinct where voters could check if their names were listed.
Meanwhile, Brillantes identified four “areas of concern” in Cebu. These were the towns of Tuburan, San Fernando, Dumanjug and Daanbantayan.