Glitches hit 3 voting machines

THE COMMISSION on Elections reported Sunday minor glitches in vote counting machines (VCM) in three Philippine diplomatic outposts being used for the overseas absentee voting.

One VCM each in Hong Kong, Dubai and Riyadh were temporarily down but the Comelec was already addressing the situation, Election Commissioner Arthur Lim, head of the Comelec Office for Overseas Voting, said.

“To avoid interruptions in voting, the voters in the precincts concerned will be allowed to cast or feed their ballots in the adjoining precincts where the rest of the VCMs are operating normally,” Lim told reporters Sunday.

The VCMs that malfunctioned will be shipped back to Manila and will be replaced with new ones. “One replacement VCM will each be deployed tomorrow to Hong Kong, Dubai and Riyadh,” he said.

He said there were “no major glitches” when the voting for Filipinos abroad opened on Saturday, exactly one month before the May 9 elections in the Philippines.

There are 1.38 million Filipinos abroad who registered for the 2016 elections under the OAV. The figure is more than the 737,000 who enlisted for the 2013 elections.

The overseas absentee voters are expected to cast their ballots in 85 Philippine outposts worldwide either by postal, personal manual voting or the automated elections system.