By Ferdinand Patinio/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will conduct a post-election assessment of the just-concluded mid-term polls.
Comelec chairman Sheriff Abas said this will cover problems that occurred in the May 13 polls.
“We want to assess where we had problems and what would be our proposals for 2022,” he said in a press briefing Wednesday.
The poll body official added that they would be looking into the problematic Secure Digital (SD) cards and vote counting machines ( VCMs) that malfunctioned, among other issues reported on Election Day.
“To us, we cannot just focus on the 2 percent that malfunctioned. We will also look at the 98 percent that were successful. We cannot just place all our resources on the ones malfunctioning,” Abas said.
The poll body earlier reported that a total of 961 VCMs and 1,665 SD cards were found to be defective but the issues were immediately resolved after the cards and machines were replaced.
Comelec data showed that the faulty cards consist of only 1.9 percent of the total 85,769 SD cards, while the machines that malfunctioned cover just 1.1 percent of the 85,769 VCMs.
Aside from the cards and machines, the Comelec Transparency Server was marred by technical glitches after its File Transfer Protocol (FTP) function experienced bottlenecking in data, resulting in delays in the relay of the results to media outlets.
On Wednesday, the Comelec, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) has proclaimed the newly-elected 12 senators and 51 party-list groups that will serve for six years and three years, respectively.
The new lawmakers’ term of office begins on June 30.
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