By Ferdinand Patinio | Philippine News Agency
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will conduct field testing on the automated election system (AES) in 14 areas in the country and overseas on Saturday in preparation for the 2025 mid-term polls.
“All set na ang Comelec for the field test,” chairperson George Garcia said in a press conference after the Hardware Acceptance Test and Stress Test for the AES held at the Comelec Biñan warehouse in Laguna province on Wednesday.
The testing in 35 sites aims to ensure that the precincts and canvass results will be transmitted through electronic transmission from the polling centers and canvassing places to their authorized destinations.
The field test will be conducted in the following provinces: Antique (3 sites), Batanes (4), Davao del Sur (3), Palawan (4), Tawi-Tawi (4), and in a special geographic area (4).
The testing in the National Capital Region (NCR) will be conducted in Manila (2 sites in Sampaloc), Pateros (2), and Taguig City (2).
For overseas, the areas will be in Japan (Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, for the Asia-Pacific), in the United States of America (Philippine Consulate General in New York, and Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C.), in the United Arab Emirates (Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi, for the Middle East and Africa); and in Greece (Philippine Embassy, in Athens, for Europe).
The poll body said the field test is part of the User Acceptance Test of the Automated Counting Machine (ACM), Consolidation and Canvassing System (CCS), Online Voting and Counting System (OVCS), and transmission hardware and applications.
It is a test on machines, applications, transmission, and procedure that is performed in an actual location where it is going to be used on election day, it added.