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Comelec, Smartmatic say device ‘glitch’ in HK ‘a good thing’


The reported glitch in two election machines on Sunday — the second day of the automated overseas absentee voting (OAV) in Hong Kong — was a "good" preview of the country’s first ever nationwide computerized elections on May 10. "It showed us what can happen on election day in the Philippines . . . that’s why it was good that happened," said Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Poll machine supplier Smartmatic -Total Information Management (TIM), meanwhile, denied that the voting interruption on the second day of OAV in Hong Kong was caused by a malfunction in the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) units. "It’s very unfair to say that there was a glitch . . . the PCOS were not broken, in fact they are well," Cesar Flores of Smartmatic Asia said at a press briefing on Monday. On Sunday, the Comelec reported that at least one PCOS machine jammed and rejected ballots, stalling voting for almost an hour. Flores said the ballots were rejected by the machine because they were "moist." He said that after the first day of automated voting in Hong Kong, the ballots were stored overnight in an airconditioned room, which made them accumulate moisture. "Let's call things as they are ... the machine was working very perfectly," he said. Glitches a 'good' thing Agreeing with Larrazabal, Flores said the stalled voting in Hong Kong was a "positive exercise" for possible scenarios on election day. "The good news was that emergency procedures were in place, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) knew what to do," he said. Flores added that he was actually "impressed" on how the Philippine posts onsite ran the precincts. He said the operations were impressive because voting went “smoothly" despite that one instance. Overseas absentee voting will run from April 10 to May 10 but only voting in Hong Kong and Singapore will be automated. There are 589,830 registered Filipino absentee voters across the world, with 95,355 in Hong Kong and 31,851 in Singapore. As of 11:20 a.m. Sunday, only a little over 4,000 Filipinos overseas have voted according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. — Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV

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