71-year-old voter waited 24 hours in line at precinct

Milagros Ymas was already at her precinct at Lagro Elementary School in Novaliches at 5 a.m. on Monday, May 9, hoping to cast her vote early.

Twenty-three hours later, at 4 a.m. the next day, the 71-year-old was still waiting to vote.

“Ang gusto ko po kasi ako talaga magsubo para siguradong ang iboboto ko ay lalabas doon sa resibo. Wala nang tulugan,” she said, still in line, in Katrina Son’s report on “24 Oras.”

(I want to feed my ballot to assure that whoever I voted for would be reflected in my receipt. We won’t sleep.)

Next to her was 70-year-old Leny Mario, who had also been patiently waiting for hours.

“Kakayanin naman po. Awa ng Diyos. Talagang di ako matutulog,” said Mario.

(We can do this by God’s mercy. We will not sleep.)

Ymas and Mario stuck it out until they were finally able to vote before 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

The cause of the delay was the malfunctioning of the corrupted SD cards used for the vote-counting machines (VCMs) at the precinct.

Similar technical problems have been reported in other polling precincts nationwide. In Quezon City, problems were reported at places including the Susana North Executive Village and Pinyahan Elementary School, where voters waited until the next morning to feed their ballots into the VCMs due to corrupted SD Cards.

In Balara Elementary School, four precincts with 726 registered voters each were unable to use their VCMs the whole day on May 9 due to the same technical glitch.

The election chairman said over 500 signed waivers allowing the electoral board to handle their ballots while 50 individuals waited for the problem to be resolved.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) earlier acknowledged that the malfunctioning of the VCMs was due to their age, saying that it was unable to procure new voting machines due to the budget Congress allocated for the elections.

“Sana po naman ay tulungan na rin natin na makabili ang Comelec ng ganitong mga klase na makina at the same time, baguhin na natin. Kinakailangan maisantabi. Para po itong cellphone: habang tumatagal, nagbabago po ang  mga cellphones, yung mga mga lumang cellphone medyo nagiging obsolete na po,” said Commissioner George Garcia.

(I hope they will help the Comelec in purchasing these machines and at the same time, replace them. It’s like cellphones: as time passes, the technology changes and the old phones become obsolete.) — Sundy Locus/BM, GMA News