About 100% VCMs for Eleksyon 2022 delivered nationwide —Comelec

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday said roughly 100% of the vote counting machines (VCMs) that will be used for the May 9, 2022 elections have already been distributed.

In an Unang Balita interview, Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said the VCMs were distributed in time for the final testing and sealing of the VCMs to be held from May 2 to 7.

“More or less 100% po tayo [delivered] sa buong Pilipinas sapagkat kinakailangan ma-deliver ‘yan ngayon at kahapon dahil nagsimula na ‘yung ating final testing and sealing,” he said.

(We have delivered more or less 100% of the VCMs as of yesterday, and we have to do that because the final testing and sealing of the VCMs is set to start today.)

Garcia encouraged the public, poll watchers, and representatives of political parties to go to polling precincts nationwide to personally witness the testing of the VCMs.

According to Garcia, if the VCM will print a zero receipt that would indicate that it is empty.

Each precinct, he said, will use 10 original ballots for the upcoming elections and visitors may test them themselves.

Garcia also pointed out that the Comelec has contingency measures set in place in case the VCMs malfunction. He said broken VCMs will be replaced immediately and the poll body will also deploy trained technicians to fix them.

Garcia assured the public that the seven-hour glitch that occurred in the 2019 elections will not happen again.

“Meron tayong source code na dineposito sa Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. At the same time, ginagarantiya ng ating Steering Committee na hindi na mangyayari ang glitch na nangyari nung 2019. Nalaman na po natin ang dahilan and we learned from that lesson,” Garcia said.

(We have a source code deposited in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. At the same time, our Steering Committee guarantees that the glitch that happened in 2019 will not happen again. We already know the reason for that and we learned from that lesson.)

Poll Commissioner Marlon Casquejo earlier explained that part of the long transmission delay in 2019 was the policy that a resolution from Comelec En Banc was required to fix the server glitch. But it could have been done by simply rebooting the server.

Because of this, the poll body has made a resolution that the simple rebooting task could be done by the head of the technology transmission group, provided the source code would not be touched. —KBK, GMA News