Only minor glitches during final testing of VCMs – Comelec

MANILA, Philippines - There were only minor glitches in the final testing and sealing (FTS) of vote counting machines (VCMs), the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday.

The glitches include delays in the initialization of VCMs due to accidental jiggling of the machines during shipment and malfunctioning of some scanners.

“We are doing okay. It is definitely better than in 2010 and 2013 elections. There are only some minor glitches,” Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista told reporters at the Forum Tent in the Philippine International Convention Center, where Comelec will conduct national canvassing starting on Monday. 

Bautista said that from May 2 to 3, around 15,000 VCMs underwent FTS but only 13 units had minor glitches.

In doing FTS, teachers comprising the Board of Elections Inspectors (BEI) would open sealed VCM boxes and then check if they contain all the election paraphernalia.

These include three iButton, SIM card, SD WORM 4gb memory cards, USB 3g modem, 10 FTS ballots, adaptor, market pens, battery cable, marker pens and thermal paper. 

Each of the 92,500 VCMs will be checked to see if they are working properly by doing several procedures, including feeding 10 test ballots that were filled up. This is intended to test if the machines counted the votes accurately.

The machines that passed the FTS procedures will be closed and then opened only on election day.

The five-day FTS ends today.

Bautista also said that Comelec is pushing through with the lease of 1,621 additional units of Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) or satellite devices that would be used to transmit election results.

According to Bautista, the deployment of the BGANs has started to make sure that these would reach their destination on election day.

“We are short of BGAN units in areas where there is no signal. The Comelec en banc has decided that we need these BGANs,” he added.

The Comelec initially leased 4,500 BGANs from Smartmatic that were deployed in 6,000 areas with poor signal or no signal at all. 

Bautista maintained that the project does not violate the Government Procurement Act although the poll body leased the new BGANs from Smartmatic through direct contracting.

Comelec denies firing CVM technicians

The Comelec and Smartmatic also denied the accusations of the camp of presidential bet Sen. Grace Poe that they fired VCM technicians.

In separate interviews, Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said that VCM technicians are under Smartmatic and the poll body is not aware that the Venezuelan company fired such workers.

Smartmatic Voter Education Committee head Karen Jimeno said the company “has not fired any technician.”

She noted Iplus is one of the subcontractors of Smartmatic related to VCM technicians and it also has not terminated any technician.

“According to Iplus, they have not fired technicians. Iplus confirmed that some technicians were not hired as they did not pass all the required tests,” she added.

Meanwhile, a local technology and systems integration company said the hacking of the Comelec website should be a wake-up call for private organizations and government agencies on the need to continually increase security for their online databases. – With Mayen Jaymalin, Rainier Allan Ronda