Poll machines in HK failed
A faulty election machine delayed the second day of overseas absentee voting (OAV) in Hong Kong. This was confirmed by Comelec spokesman James Jimenez. He said that a damaged Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine postponed the ongoing absentee voting in Hong Kong.
“The machine got wet during a rain the night before because those assigned in one of the polling precincts forgot to close the windows,” Jimenez reported. Because of this unexpected problem, manual counting might be the only solution.
Jimenez added that the PCOS machine finally worked after drying, but one of the replacement machines is also not working and is now being shipped back to Manila for repair.
According to him 26 PCOS machines, which also includes the six backups did not accept all the ballots, thus halting the OAV in Hong Kong.
Jimenez ignored the reports that this incident could result in a failure of election and will eventually lead to extension of the term of President Arroyo.
Meanwhile, Gordon is not too happy with the news about the incident in Hong Kong. He thinks that sample ballots shouldn’t be used since it will just be used in cheating and vote buying.
But Jimenez is not easily swayed by Gordon’s comments, he said : “As long as those sample ballots would not be fed into the machines and they won’t be read by the election machines anyway, we will not stop their use.”
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