THE final testing and sealing (FTS) of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines in Pasay City went smoothly, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Thursday.
Result showed by manual count and those generated by the PCOS machines were the same, Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said who personally witnessed the FTS at Gotamco Elementary School in Pasay City.
"Ini-expect ko naman talaga na mag-tally sila e. I hope ito na rin ang mangyari all over the country (I expect the results to be equal. I hope the rest of the country will get same results)," said Brillantes.
Geraldine Milo, Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) chairman, who handled Precinct 24 in Barangay 15, Zone 1 in Pasay City said the manual count had tallied with the PCOS results.
An incident of over voting in the party-list and city councillors was discovered during the manual counting. It was initially counted but cancelled later on after being double checked.
Under Comelec rules, over votes, or cases when the number of votes needed for the post exceeds, will result to having the votes in the particular position nullified.
Brillantes attributed the initial success of the FTS to the series of preliminary tests the Comelec did prior to Thursday testing.
The poll chief said this is unlike what happened in 2010, wherein the misconfiguration of the compact flash (CF) cards was only found during the FTS since there were no preliminary tests conducted with the machines.
During the first automated elections in 2010, the CF cards were found to have been misconfigured, thus prompting the Comelec and service provider, Smartmatic–TIM Corporation to replace all the close to 80,000 memory cards nationwide with only a week left before Election Day.
Section 12 of the Poll Automation Law requires the FTS of the PCOS machines by the BEI at least three to seven days before Election Day.
Brillantes said the ones conducted Thursday are just the first batch of FTS with more to be conducted in the coming days.
"The bulk of it will be on May 6. Siguro mga 60 percent ang bubuksan (Sixty percent will be opened on that day)," said Brillantes.
After the testing is finished the machine will be sealed. It will be opened on Election Day, May 13. Once PCOS machines are sealed, there are two procedures on how the machine will be secured.
"One, it could remain in the school houses where all of them could stay in a room or it could be brought back to the house for security purposes," Brillantes said.
There are a total of 77,829 clustered precincts spread in 36,772 voting centers nationwide that will function on Election Day. (HDT/UST intern Matthew Bernie Zate/Sunnex)