Despite the different problems encountered especially with the vote counting machine, the Commission on Elections said that yesterday’s mid-term elections were generally successful.
“We think it’s generally successful,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said.
Jimenez attributed the success of the elections to a lot of polling precincts that were opened and a lot of people were able to successfully cast their votes.
He said although these elections might be a little “problematic” because of the issues that were encountered, what is important is that they are addressing and resolving all the said issues.
One of them, he said, was the issue about the VCM.
According to Jimenez, there were 400 to 600 incidents of machines which had to be replaced because they encountered a problem with the SD card which was among those being eyed as possible culprit.
And the poll official said the number was higher compared to 2016 which had about 125 only.
“We have fewer incidences in 2016. Back then the machines were brand new. I cannot say for a fact that that is a factor. But again that’s a fact that they were brand new at that time…so probably that could be an issue as well,” Jimenez said.
“We will know when we analyze all of the different failures that we are seeing,” added Jimenez.
Although there seems to be a lot of problems, he said it’s within the range of their expectation. “It’s happening within the range of expectation. There is a problem but it is being solved,” Jimenez said.
“Obviously this is not a problem-free elections. There are many problems that has to be resolved, had to be understood more fully in order to prepare better in future elections,” he added. (Leslie Aquino)
