All CF cards, 93% of PCOS delivered, Comelec says

All 76,347 re-configured compact flash (CF) cards for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines have been delivered to respective cities and municipalities in the country, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Sunday. The poll body said it has also delivered 92.84 percent of the more than 70,000 counting machines to the respective precincts nationwide as of 10:55 a.m. While all CF cards and 93 percent of the PCOS machines have been delivered, testing of the machines are still at 35.52 percent as of 10:55 a.m., the Comelec said. The machines would get delivered to parts of Visayas and Mindanao and testing will be completed within the day, the poll body said. The last batch of CF cards - which hold the instructions on how the PCOS machines would work - was delivered at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, according to Cesar Flores, Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) president for Asia. Smartmatic-TIM is the PCOS supplier, contracted by the Comelec. "Today is a very crucial day, [especially] for our teachers who are really the heroes now, to get these [memory cards] and bring them to the precincts and test them hopefully by today," Flores told reporters on Sunday. "Security concerns" in the municipalities might delay the arrival of the CF cards in the various precincts, but the latest they would be arriving would be Monday morning, Flores added. Earlier, the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM had to recall all the CF cards installed in the PCOS machines after the ER results failed to match the manual count during testing. Meawhile, the Comelec started on Sunday the scheduled testing of the counting machines in Pateros, Muntinlupa, Las Piñas, Pasig, San Juan, and Malabon. At the Araullo High School on UN Avenue in Manila, 16 PCOS machines are being tested as of posting time, a separate radio dzBB report said. "We're in good shape… [Retesting and resealing would reach] about a hundred percent today," Flores said. Glitches At the Quezon City High School on Scout Ybardaloza Street in Quezon City, the testing of five machines was unsuccessful as figures from the election returns (ERs) did not match the manual count. Janlyn Bautista, a Smartmatic technician, found out that one of the counting machines still contained an old, un-reconfigured CF card. After the old card was replaced, the ER tally and the manual count matched. At the Andres Bonifacio Integrated School in Mandaluyong City, testing has yet to start after the PCOS machines failed to start. GMA News reporter Lala Roque said when election officials tried turning on the machine the message "Application terminated unexpectedly" appeared on the screen. A Smartmatic technician has already gone to the precinct to check the machine. 'Ballot snatching' In Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao, supporters of a mayoral candidate from Barira town tried to keep the military from taking ballots out of the capitol hall. Thinking that the ballots were for the local elections in Barira, supporters of mayoral candidate Maimona Macarimbang tried snatching the ballots from the authorities. The supporters alleged they did not want the ballots to reach the precincts in Barira, because the Board of Election Inspectors and local officials of Smartmatic are all allied with or are relatives of Macarimbang's political rival and incumbent Mayor Alexander Tomawis. But as it turned out, the ballots were actually intended to be delivered to Kabuntalan town. The military insisted on delivering the ballots, saying they could end up being answerable if the ballots do not reach the precincts. Burned PCOS machines On Sunday, Smartmatic also assured that the five PCOS machines burned in Miag-ao town in Iloilo on Saturday would immediately be replaced. "[The burning of the PCOS machines] was very unfortunate. I think what we should worry about... is the danger [this poses] to [people's] lives... Whoever is trying to sabotage the elections, please do not harm anyone. We are coming up with replacements this morning for the burned machines," Flores said. Flores also allayed fears that delivery of the replacement PCOS machines would get delayed. He assured that voting in Iloilo will push through as scheduled. —VS, GMANews.TV