Supplier says vote counting machines ready for use

The consortium formed to supply the Commission on Elections (Comelec) with the vote counting and canvassing machines announced yesterday that they are ready to install the required number of automated counting machines (ACMs) for the May 2004 elections.

This was confirmed by Mega Pacific Consortium (MPC) spokesman, lawyer Alfredo Lazaro Jr., in reaction to the allegations raised by certain groups on the preparedness and dependability of the automated ballot and canvassing machines to be supplied to by the company.

Lazaro cited the favorable findings of the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) reporting to the Comelec last Oct. 24 that it has tested a total of 456 ACMs to be used by the Comelec in the May 10, 2004 elections and found out that all have an accuracy rating of 100 percent, except for one machine which has an accuracy rating of 99.998 percent.

Metals Industry Research and Development Center (MIRDC) executive director Rolando Viloria, chairman of the DoST technical evaluation committee, in that letter, told Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra that "the verification test would show that the machine is 100 percent accurate in reading and counting the votes that are properly shaded, provided that the ballots are fed with the right orientation. Hence, we can safely conclude that the machine has a 100 percent accuracy rating on all environmental conditions."

The testing was conducted by MIRDC of the DoST.

Viloria stressed in his letter that, "the security feature of the existing test software presently installed in the machine already addresses this concern which rejects the ballots if fed improperly (inverted) and allows the machine operator to re-feed the ballots (not more than three times) in accordance with the guidelines of the Comelec."

Lazaro said that their machine can count 50 ballots per minute and contrary to allegations, would require only one operator using high-tech automatic feeding of ballots. The machine can read both sides of the ballots simultaneously and detect both fake and previously counted ballots.

The ACMs are part of a total of 1,991 automated counting machines ordered by Comelec from Mega Pacific eSolutions Inc., a consortium that includes the South Korean manufacturer of the machines, which won the bidding for Phase 2 of the poll modernization program.

Viloria said in his letter that during the tests, "the shading of some votes (in six precincts) were not done properly, i.e., marks not within the box or barely within the box. If the improperly shaded votes are excluded from the Comelec count, there will be no errors for the precincts represented by said ballots.

This means that the machine can count all properly shaded boxes/votes with 100 percent accuracy."

The number of machines tested as of last Oct. 20 included the nine retested units which were earlier found with minor defects, but are now in tiptop condition and ready for use.