Comelec to probe defective VCMs this weekend

IMAGE: Ed Lustan

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will begin this weekend the investigation of the hundreds of vote-counting machines (VCMs) that encountered issues during the May 9 polls.

“In view of the call of the President to investigate the defective VCMs during the election last Monday, Commissioner [Marlon] Casquejo, the head of the steering committee, will convene tomorrow (May 14), the Comelec Advisory Council and the Project Management Office to get to the bottom of this issue,” Commissioner George Garcia told reporters.

President Duterte earlier said that while he believed there was no cheating during the conduct of the elections, the poll body should look into the VCM issue to dispel doubts on the integrity of the poll results.

In some precincts on Monday, voting took several hours for some voters due to malfunctioning VCMs and defective or corrupted secure digital cards.

READ: VCMs malfunction in 3 Marinduque polling centers