• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Commission on Elections will hold a series of roadshows in Negros Island Region starting in December to educate stakeholders on the automated counting machines (ACMs) that will be used in the May 2025 midterm polls.
Comelec NIR regional election director, Atty. Lionel Marco Castillano, said Sept. 14 that the roadshows will be for two months, and will target students, as well as senior citizens, election watchdogs, and even political parties.
Castillano said he hopes the voter education campaign/roadshows will lead to awareness and acceptance of the Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count (FASTrAC), of which the ACM is a component.
The Comelec said it is important that electorates familiarize themselves with the ACMs before the elections. Castillano recalled that in previous elections, there were voters who were nervous of damaging the vote counting machines.
“We start with the young voters, those senior high students; there will be ACM demos in the barangays, schools, political parties, senior citizens, our election stakeholders, so they will have acceptance of the (FASTrAC) system, and (hopefully) less election protests,” Castillano said.
He said that there will be one ACM for demonstration in every town, city, and province, from the two machines that were used in roadshows per region before.
Comelec NIR assistant regional election director, Atty. Dindo Maglasang, who led the first ACM demonstration to election officers, as well as local reporters at the Capitol Social Hall in Bacolod Sept. 14, said the whole system is worth more than P17 billion, inclusive of the machines, software, ballot paper and boxes, technical support during the election, and training for members of the electoral boards, among others.
Each province will also have its own ACM repair hub, including trained technical crew.
Each ACM features a 14-inch touchscreen, battery, camera, scanner, printer, smartcard and USB (universal serial bus) ports, voter’s receipt receptacle, and network, among others. It has auto alignment feature, and a voter can review the correctness of his or her ballot for 20 seconds, before the receipt is placed in a receptacle.
“We have safeguards for each step” of voting, Castillano said, adding the 20-second review duration would ensure that voters in each clustered precinct could cast their ballot during the voting hours, which is from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Comelec central office said Sept. 12 that it already started the hardware acceptance test (HAT) of ACMs and peripherals, as well as Starlink satellites in its warehouse in Laguna, and the laboratory test of ACMs and Consolidated Canvassing System (CCS) laptops from South Korean-based Miru Systems Company Limited, that won the P17.99-billion FASTrAC contract.
“The conduct of the HAT is for quality assurance purposes,” the Comelec said in a statement, adding it will not accept a machine if any of its parts fail the test, and that Miru is under obligation to repair or replace the defective parts or machines.
The poll body said 2,000 ACMs are set to undergo the HAT since these will be used for the roadshows nationwide. Miru is on track to deliver 110,000 ACMs by November this year, or earlier than the targe completion date of December 2024, the Comelec added. | CGC
