By Lilian Mellejor/PNA
DAVAO CITY – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is ready for the nationwide mock elections on Saturday, January 19, to test all procedures for the mid-term election in May.
In Davao Region, the mock polls will be conducted in Digos City and Bansalan in Davao del Sur, which are also the pilot areas for the use of the Biometric Voter Registration System (BVRS).
Comelec-11 spokesperson Krisna Caballero, said the BVRS is an automatic data capturing of biometric fingerprints, facial feature, and digitized signature.
Caballero said the mock polls will test how effective is the system and correct or make adjustments. The poll body has selected at least 100 voters as participants for each pilot area, she added.
“It will be the first time that Comelec will use the biometric fingerprints for the upcoming election. There are other enhancements that Comelec is introducing in its voting system,” Caballero on Wednesday said during the AFP-PNP press corps briefing.
Aside from the BVRS, the voting machine will also issue or print receipts for the voters to countercheck the list of candidates they elected. But the receipts will be kept by Comelec to maintain the secrecy of the ballots, Caballero said.
Another improvement, she said, is that machines will already read ballots with only 25 percent shading.
This year’s election will see a total of 3,026,393 registered voters in Davao Region going out to vote.
Of the total number of registered voters, 984,604 are in Davao City; 425,586 in Davao del Sur; 182,122 in Davao Occidental; 605,643 in Davao del Norte; 462,942 in Compostela Valley; and, 365,496 in Davao Oriental.
Caballero said there will be 19,701 established precincts in the region and 3,777 clustered precincts.
Comelec is currently working on the composition of the Board of Election Inspectors, she said.
