Cebu City (CNN Philippines)— From casting of votes to counting and transmission of ballots, the mock elections in Cebu went smooth sailing.
There were, however, a few “minor” problems observed along the process, especially in the feeding of the ballots.
The machine on first attempt has not accepted some of the test ballots.
Cebu City First District Election Supervisor Marchell Sarno said the rejection of some ballots upon first insertion is not a glitch of the machine but human error.
According to Sarno, an error occurs when a voter inserts the ballot improperly.
It took about five minutes at an average for the younger voters to undergo the voting process while elder voters took about 10 minutes each.
Also see: PHOTOS: Comelec mock elections
“Slow reading” of ballots
Teachers, who served as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI’s), noticed the slow reading of each ballot fed into the vote counting machine (VCM).
According to them, it took about 10 to 15 seconds before the machines could read each ballot inserted into it.
In urban barangay Mabolo, only 15 out of the 100 people invited to participate was able to make it to the polling precinct.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has allowed Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) volunteers and members of the media to cast their votes, instead— bringing the total number of votes to 25.
The printing of votes casted and the transmission of results took almost an hour.
Barangay Lusaran was able to transmit earlier than barangay Mabolo.
Voter turnout in Lusaran reached 95 out of 100 pre-selected voters.
Just like in the actual polls, teachers were assigned to assist voters, while policemen were deployed outside the school perimeter.
Signal problem
Observers said there was also a problem with the 3G signals in brgy. Lusaran.
This, however, was remedied with the use of a more advance Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) equipment that uses satellite signals.
Comelec Commissioner Arthur Lim traveled from Manila to observe the conduct of the mock elections in Cebu.
The Comelec conducted a nationwide mock elections, which the poll body said was generally “successful.”
Cebu-based journalist Dale Israel contributed to this report.
