“Glitches” hit mock elections: Votes weren’t transmitted

CEBU, Philippines - The results of yesterday’s mock elections failed to be transmitted electronically from the local board of canvassers to the central server in Manila even after the use of a global satellite internet network or Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN).

This was the main problem met by the Cebu City Board of Canvassers and the Cebu Provincial Board of Canvassers when it held the one-day simulated polls on Saturday as a pre-trial for the May 2016 electoral race.

Cebu provincial election supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano, however, assessed the entire activity simultaneously handled in Cebu City and Santander town as satisfactory despite the technical discrepancy.

“Satisfied hinuon ko bisan naa’y problema sa transmission to the National Board of Canvassers from the Provincial Board of Canvassers. That concerns the technical aspect but as to the process during the voting, very satisfied and perfect,” he said in a telephone interview.

With months to go before the actual election date, Castillano said that the problems being experienced at this time can still be addressed.

One purpose of the Comelec-initiated activity was to check the electronic transmission of the vote results from the precinct until it reaches the central server.

Another purpose of holding the mock polls was to test the accuracy of the new Vote Counting Machines (VCM). Castillano considered the accuracy “perfect” since the results from the electronic machine coincided with the results in the manual audit.

The mock test was conducted nationwide, but in Cebu only two clustered precincts each in Cebu City and Santander town participated with a sampled population.

There was a high turnout of voters in the Santander precincts where 190 of the 200 invited voters turned up. Voter turnout in Lusaran reached 95 out of 100 pre-selected voters, but in Barangay Mabolo, only 15 voters showed up. The number had to be padded by 10 volunteers from the Board of Inspectors and the media while the rest of the unused ballots were also fed to the machine.

Castillano explained that some of those tapped to participate from the uptown area may have prioritized to attend the working day on Saturday.

Also, Castillano reported that the precinct in Kabutongan Elementary School in Santander town had a hard time transmitting the vote results to the municipality due to problem in mobile signal server, thus the equipment had to be transported manually to the municipal hall.

Problems in Cebu City

In Cebu City the casting of votes to the counting and transmission of ballots, the mock elections in Cebu went smoothly except for a few problems observed, especially during the feeding of the ballots where some were not accepted by the machine on the first attempt.

Teachers also noticed the slow reading of each ballot fed into the VCM. In some cases it took about 10 to 15 seconds before the machines read each ballot fed into it.

In Mabolo where only 15 out of the 100 people invited to participate went to the polling precinct, the Board of Elections Inspectors closed the voting at 11:45 a.m. The precinct successfully transmitted their data to Cebu City Hall at 12:39 p.m.

Lusaran was able to transmit at an earlier time at 12:30 p.m. Initially there was a problem with the 3G signal in Lusaran but like in Santander this was remedied with the use of BGAN equipment.

However, Cebu City First District Election Supervisor Marchel Sarno said the transmission of data to the central server in Manila from Cebu City also failed.

Sarno also said the rejection of some ballots upon first insertion is not a glitch of the machine but a result of human error. The errors occurred due to the way the ballots were inserted by the person mainly because of the security features of the ballot paper and the VCM.

It took about five minutes for younger voters to undergo the voting process while the older voters took about 10 minutes.

Comelec Commissioner Arthur Lim was in Cebu yesterday to observe the conduct of the mock elections. — /BRP (FREEMAN)