“All political parties will be getting a formal Comelec notification by April 29 for them or their representatives to witness the FTS,” said Comelec public relations officer Cristalyn Magsino in a forum of the Capampangans in Media Inc. (CAMI) here.
She said boards of election inspectors (BEI) in the precincts will choose 10 volunteers to cast their sample ballots in VCM’s for the FTS.
“I am not sure whether the ballots to be used will list up actual candidates or not, but the FTS will be open to the public,” she said.
Miguel Eugenio Avila, coordinator of Smartmatic which has provided the VCMs, said that after the machines have been tested, they would be “re-zeroed” before being sealed anew.
“The next time the VCM’s will be opened will be at the precincts on election day itself,” he said.
She said the VCMs have already been delivered to the provinces in time for the May 2 to 6 FTS.
Avila said the VCMs to be used in the May 9 polls are much superior to the PCOS machines used in 2013.
“The VCM has faster 256bit processor, as against only 128 bits of the PCOS machine. Its SD card is also more robust so that data corruption is less likely,” he said.
He also said that the VCM has a more powerful battery that can last 14 hours.
“Even with power failure of electric firms, the VCM will go on working,” he noted.
Magsino said more registered voters are expected to cast their votes on May 9 arising from better accommodations for senior citizens and persons with disability.
She noted that a total of 54,363,844 are registered to vote nationwide, on top of 1,376,067 overseas Filipinos and 67,511 detainees who are also registered.
“We have a total of 396,133 established precincts which are clustered into 92,509 precincts which will receive a VCM each,” Magsino added.
