Glitches in VRVM delay voting in parts of Pangasinan

SAN FERNANDO CITY — Voting in many parts of Pangasinan province started slowly after most of the voter’s registration verification machines (VRVM) in the polling places malfunctioned, an election official said.

Reddy Balarbar, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Ilocos assistant regional director, said the new instructions in starting off the machines may not have been followed.

A VRVM makes use of scanning software to verify a voter’s identity and his or her registration in a certain precinct.

Balarbar said, as a result, voting slowed down because election inspectors in the affected polling places had to manually verify the voters’ registration from a list.

He added that some Secure Digital cards in some polling centers in Ilocos Region were defective.

But he said that as of this posting, the Comelec’s technical hub has addressed the problem.