Satellite antenna up

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec)- Davao Region installed Wednesday a satellite antenna and other accompanying components at the Davao City Council building in preparation for the May 10 polls.

The poll body and its communications partner, Smartmatic, have made arrangements with the City Council as the latter will provide the venue for the crucial stage of votes counting.

Comelec-Davao Region Regional lawyer Danilo Cullo headed the installation of a 6-foot Ipstar broadband satellite, its modem, and a laptop at the City Council building's rooftop.

"This is in line with our preparation that the canvassing of votes will be done in the session hall as per the local government code. The Comelec has requested to make sure walang (no) power outages during the counting of votes, security for the satellite dish, and to provide physical barricades during the canvassing of votes," SP secretary lawyer Zuleika Lopez said.

The communication equipment were connected through wires inside the session hall, where the local votes cast will be viewed on a computer monitor as it is being tallied, said Cullo.

"The satellite will receive the information from the PCOS [precinct count optical scan] machines from the polling precincts to corresponding databanks," Cullo said.

Cullo said as the poll precinct closes; the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) will perform the "close function" to prevent the insertion of additional ballots after voting has ended.

The PCOS machine will automatically counts all the votes cast and an Election Return (ER) will be printed in certain number of copies.

After the ERs are printed, a cable is connected to the PCOS machine for the transmission of results from a particular precinct.

The results are transmitted by the PCOS machines electronically to the City/Municipal Board of Canvassers (BOC) via canvassing/consolidation machines (CCMs), which will consolidate the results from all precincts within the city or municipality, Cullo said.

Cullo said the results will also be transmitted electronically to the Comelec central office.

The same process will take place from the city or municipality to the province; from the province to Congress and Comelec, he added.

Generator Set

Lopez said the City Council will purchase a generator set as a back-up source of power in ensuring the automated polls in the locality will be successful.

The SP is currently working with the City Engineer's Office and the General Services Office in deciding on a generator set with the capacity of 30 to 35 KVA.

"We're geting ready to purchase a generator set. We have allotted a budget for that. Sa ngayon nag-canvass pa kung ano yung advantage to the government na hindi masyadong mahal but will provide the necessary power requirement in the event na magkaroon ng power outage," Lopez said.

"We have also requested DLPC [Davao Light and Power Company] initially to exempt the Sanggunian from the rotational brownouts specifically every Tuesday kasi nga may council session and on May 9, 10, and 11," she said.

Police security

Lopez also said arrangements with the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) and Task Force Davao to provide security in the building have already been made.

"Right now there is one police officer securing the satellite dish under the request of the Comelec. On our part we provided also one security, and we also requested the Comelec na magprovide rin sila ng Comelec representative to be here, while preparations are being made to see and monitor kung ano pa yung kailangan dito," Lopez said.

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