VCM glitches cause delays, long queues in some provinces in Luzon

Several vote-counting machines (VCMs) have encountered technical glitches in various provinces in Luzon in the morning of Monday's national elections.

In Dagupan City, a VCM scanner stopped working after experiencing paper jam when voters inserted their ballots.

Commission on Election (COMELEC) officials tried to fix the error using the cleaning sheet, but the machine still refused to read the ballots.

Voters in line were asked to move to a waiting room until the defective machine was replaced by COMELEC.

A similar incident occurred in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan when a VCM repeatedly spit out several inserted ballots as early as 8:30 am.

The line of voters waiting for their turn grew longer as the machine was out of service for an hour. Polling only resumed when the replacement VCM arrived 20 minutes later.

In Tarlac, eight VCMs have been affected by glitches but problems were immediately fixed according to COMELEC.

In Camarines Sur, voters continued to fill out their ballots even with the VCM out or order. The early birds were forced to leave their ballots in a folder held by the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI).

Other voters opted to wait for the VCM to work before casting their votes in order to protect their ballots, especially with no receipts issued due to the machine error.

The BEI said they requested a replacement VCM from Smartmatic, but it has yet to arrive after more than two hours.

Vice Presidential candidate Leni Robredo was also among voters who got delayed in casting their votes as the VCM in Tabuco Central School in Naga City also malfunctioned.

Robredo was able to vote at 11:30 am after two hours of waiting in line as a new machine was delivered to the precinct.

In Masbate, polling was delayed for four hours in Bagumbayan Elementary School as the VCM stopped counting votes after five ballots were inserted.

A technician could not fix the machine so the BEI gathered the voters' ballots, which would be inserted in the VCM once it resumes working or the precinct gets a new one.

In Nueva Ecija, meanwhile, polling was delayed because some voters could not find their names in the voters' list. Distribution of ballots were also halted as they were transported using personal cars instead of deputized vehicles.

In Casiguran, Aurora, a brownout occurred in the middle of polls. Dinalasag at  Dinalungan were also affected by power outage. —Marisse Panaligan/NB, GMA News