Glitches stall long lines at precincts
MANILA — Barely halfway through election day, broken voter machines and technical difficulties forced voters to wait hours under the sun just to practice their right to suffrage.
The Commission on Elections has admitted that it recorded almost 1,900 voting machines marred with "common issues" around the country including paper jams, rejected ballots, and printing complications.
Even in sites without any technical difficulties — including Loyola Grand Villas and the adjacent Miriam College — voters who arrived in the early morning were still in line by 3 p.m. Accounts of similar experiences around the country have since gone viral on social media.
At the Pinyahan Elementary School precinct in Quezon City, Comelec electoral board third member Rowena Nilo told Philstar.com that one vote-counting machine's SD card was corrupted and taken by a technician.
She admitted there was no assurance it could be replaced today, adding that voters were instead made to choose if they want to wait or trust Comelec to insert their votes later on in the day, which would be witnessed by poll watchdog groups present in the area.
In the very next room in Pinyahan, a VCM malfunctioned and stopped working altogether after being turned on earlier in the morning. The Comelec, again, gave no time as to when it could send over a replacement.
Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting area volunteer lead Limuel Lopez told Philstar.com that the two VCMs had everything to do with the long lines around the center.
"What's happening now is the inserting of votes is manual, so the people are getting frustrated and the lines are getting longer," he said in Filipino.
At the Teacher's Village East precinct, two corrupted SD cards also forced a number of voters to wait from 6 a.m. to 12 noon. 24-year-old voter Maia Dapul told Philstar.com that the machines in question had been broken from the very start since the precinct opened.
"We were waiting for a technician to arrive since then. They only got an update that a technician was on the way at 9 a.m. and they only arrived at 11:40," she said, adding that a number of voters eventually left their place in line out of frustration.
"I was here for 5 hours and I can feel the frustration from everyone, that the start of the day it was already broken," she added in mixed Filipino and English.
Comelec technician Kyle Cruz could not say when the replacement SD cards would arrive since they would be coming from the Comelec main office in Malacanang.
He added that the SD cards were working fine when they were tested three days ago, while no other person had access to them. He could not say why the SD card corruption happened in two sites. — Franco Luna with reports from Kaycee Valmonte/ Philstar.com