Poor signal slows transmission of Bohol mock poll results

The Comelec conducted Mock elections in two towns in Bohol on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. (Photo by LEO UDTOHAN / Inquirer Visayas)

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol — The only problem the local Commission on Elections (Comelec) offices encountered in Bohol during the mock elections held on Saturday, Jan. 9, was poor phone signal that slowed down the transmission of vote results.

In Bohol province, mock elections were held in two barangays each in Cortes and Alburquerque towns.

The provincial Comelec office said the vote-counting machines (VCMs) that the votes in the mock canvassing had been 100 percent transmitted shortly after 4:05 p.m. Saturday.

The mock elections aimed to have all votes accounted for in the 2019 midterm elections.

They also aimed to to test the automated voting machines, the transmittal of votes and results to the canvassers in the head office, and its new Voter Registration Verification System.

On Saturday, votes from the clustered precincts had to be transmitted to three servers — the Comelec Central Server, the Transparency Server, and the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC).

The Comelec Central Server and the Transparency Server receive the transmitted votes straight from VCMs.

The NBOC, which will declare the final results, gets the votes through a careful step-by-step process.

In this process, the votes from polling precincts have to be transmitted to the Municipal Board of Canvassers (MBOC) then to the Provincial Board of Canvassers (PBOC), before being beamed to the NBOC.

During the mock canvassing on Saturday, the transmission to the Comelec Central Server and the Transparency Server finished an hour earlier than the transmission to the NBOC.

There were two precintcs each for Cortes and Alburquerque towns, which catered 100 voters per precinct.

In Barangay Dangay in Alburquerque, there were four precincts in a cluster at Dangay Elementary School with 87 voters.

The transmission from this school succeeded in transmitting to the Comelec Central Server and the Transparency Server, but it failed to reach the MBOC. But it was later solved by an information technology expert from the Comelec.

Election officer Christopher Peralta of the Alburquerque Comelec office said that there was no problem during the casting of votes.

He said the only problem was poor signal.

“Number 1 la siguro sa problema nato karun is yung pagreceive ng mga result galing ng cluster precints. Naka-pagtrasmit na sila pero sa MBOC is hindi natin matanggap,” he said.

But in the 2016 elections, he said Barangay Dangay had 100-percent successful transmission of vote results.

Peralta said that the mock elections was an opportunity for the Comelec in Bohol to find ways to address this particular problem should this happen in the May 2019 elections. /atm