NINE days before Election Day, all vote counting machines (VCMs), official ballots and other poll paraphernalia are expected to be in their respective places already, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
In a media briefing, Comelec - Project Management Office Deputy Project Director Teopisto Elnas said they have already completed the printing of all the 61,843,756 official ballots and that the deployment is already underway.
“As far as deployment of official ballots, we are already on our third day of dispatch. We started with our priority areas, like Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and Batanes,” said Elnas.
“It will end this coming May 4. It is expected that by May 4, they will all be in place in the different municipal and city treasurer’s office,” he furthered.
Elnas noted that all official ballots and other poll paraphernalia will stay at the City or the Municipal Treasurer’s Offices until the morning of May 13 when they are distributed to the Electoral Boards.
On the other hand, the poll official said all the more than 85,000 VCMs have already been dispatched completely.
“The primary VCMs that will be used in the elections are already delivered in the different regional and local hubs by our forwarders. They are strategically located for purposes of deploying them before the final FTS (Final Testing and Sealing),” he related.
“Those will be dispatched for the conduct of the FTS in the different polling places and will remain there until Election Day,” added the official.
Elnas said the FTS is scheduled any day between May 6 to May 10.
Election Day is scheduled on May 13 with voting hours set from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)