DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 6 May) — The Archdiocesan Commission on Elections Monitoring Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (ACE-COM PPCRV) pointed out that the automated counting machines (ACMs) that underwent final counting and testing on Tuesday were “generally working” properly, but “appear[ed] inconsistent” when wrong marking patterns are used.
MindaNews visited Davao City National High School (DCNHS) on Tuesday morning to observe the testing.
ACE-PPCRV spokesperson Aileen Lizada told reporters that the seven ACMs being tested at the Davao City National High School were all found to be “generally working” for the May 12 midterm polls, provided the voters would properly shade the circles beside the candidates’ names.
But to find out how the ACMs would behave if voters are careless, Lizada experimented using different marking patterns aside from the required shading inside the circle to count as a vote. She intentionally used special marks such as checks, the letter X, dots, vertical and horizontal lines, diagonal lines, and squares to find out how the ACM would behave.
In one instance, a ballot with 14 names marked in the senatorial candidates section where only 12 votes are allowed resulted in only 11 being counted.
On another ballot Lizada tested, she marked 13 names.
The ACM declared it entirely as an overvote and was declared invalid.
She also tried intentionally shading way outside the circle such that the shade covered the circle intended for the next candidate. She said it was not counted in one ACM, but the other machine notified her that she overvoted.
In another instance, a square drawn outside the circle was not counted; but the square drawn similary but one side hitting the circle tangentially was counted.
“It appears that [the ACMs] are inconsistent,” Lizada told the public school teachers serving in the board of election inspectors and others in the audience. She added that the issue needed to be raised to the Comelec.
She thus called on voters to properly shade the circles beside their candidates’ names for their votes to be counted properly.
Meanwhile, lawyer Gay Enumerables, spokersperson of the Commission on Elections in the Davao Region, said in a phone interview that she was shocked to learn on the experiments done on the ballots in testing the ACMs.
She pointed out that if only the circles beside the candidates’ names were properly shaded, the ACMs would be consistent and no overvoting should have happened.
Her advice to voters: “We will fully shade the circle kung kinsa atong gipili nga kandidato so that wala tayo question later on.” (We will full shade the circle of our candidate so we won’t have question later on.
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The ACMs tested at the Davao City National High School will be used by clusters 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44 for Barangay 10-A voters and clusters 45 and 46 for Barangay 11-B voters.
However, two of the ACMs’ serial numbers do not match with their respective ballot boxes, specifically on ACMs No. 41 and No. 44.
Enumerables said the mismatch will not affect the election counting nor will the votes interchange because the ballots are assigned specifically to each ACM.
“Dili mag-rumble ng vote uy. Basta kung dili gani-match ang atong balota with the machine, dili gud na kaunon sa machine ang balota” (The votes won’t interchange. A ballot not intended for a particular ACM won’t be read by the machine), Enumerables assured.
Evelyn Magno, Department of Education election supervising officer and DCNHS principal, said they are generally ready for the conduct of the elections. (Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)
