'Unexpected' surge in users causes Comelec website to crash

An unexpected surge in the number of users accessing the website of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) caused it to crash, a poll body official said Monday. In an interview with GMANews.TV, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said they did not expect that there would be so much demand for the poll body's main website, which has an option where voters can search for their precincts. Jimenez explained that they had already upgraded the website but the surge in individual users and "industrial strength users" still ate up their bandwidth faster than they had anticipated. "If the load were normal, yung individual queries lang, the site would have probably stood until late this afternoon," he said. But Jimenez, who is also the head of the Education and Information Department (EID), said that what happened is a good thing "in a sense" because it shows how high the interest is in the automated polls. The EID oversees the main Comelec website, the Iba Na Ngayon website and the Comelec at Wordpress. As of posting time, the website has gone back to normal. Jimenez said the website went online again because they upgraded it once more. But he said that even without this, the website would have still probably gone back online because the demand would have gone down by the afternoon. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said that voters can also call the Comelec at the following numbers 527-0841, 527-2773, 527-2772, 527-0822, 526-7769, and 526-7770 to inquire about their precincts. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ/LBG, GMANews.TV