Sibalom: Teachers who will serve as members of the Electoral Boards (EB) for the May 12 National and Local Elections vouched for the accuracy of the automated counting machines (ACMs) after the conduct of the final testing and sealing (FTS) on Wednesday. Blasito Guanzon, tapped as EB chair, said in an interview Wednesday that the ACM did not count the excess senatorial candidates. Voters are reminded to choose and shade only 12 names for the senatorial posts.

According to Philippines News Agency, Guanzon retrieved his Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) or voter’s receipt after feeding a valid ballot to the ACM in about six to eight seconds. “We found the ACM to be accurate. The ACM is high speed; the voter could almost immediately get the voter’s receipt after feeding the official ballot to the machine,” Guanzon said.

Alice Juada of the Ilabas Elementary School, who will serve as Department of Education Supervising Official (DESO), said that the election result generated from the ACM was similar to the result of the manual voting. “We tried to compare the ACM result with that of our manual voting, and we generated the same result,” she said. Juada advised voters to be extra careful and make sure that they do not crumple their official ballot for it to get accepted when fed to the ACM.

Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting coordinator for Sibalom, Cris Brian Galles, who monitored the final testing and sealing, said that, so far, the process went smoothly. The electoral board did not encounter any major problems. “So far, there were no major problems with the ACMs delivered for the final testing and sealing early Wednesday morning to the Sibalom Central Elementary School,” he said. He noted that the election paraphernalia for the centralized final testing and sealing were also complete.