Comelec holds final test of over 5,600 vote machines in Eastern Visayas

READY FOR THE POLLS. The final testing of an automated counting machine at the Rizal Central School in Tacloban City on Tuesday (May 6, 2025). At least 5,670 automated counting machines for the upcoming national and local elections in Eastern Visayas were tested and sealed. (PNA photo by Angelo Bryan Pelias, OJT)

TACLOBAN CITY — At least 5,670 automated counting machines (ACMs) for the upcoming national and local elections in Eastern Visayas underwent final testing and sealing (FTS) on Tuesday.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) 8 (Eastern Visayas) legal officer Ma. Krishna Athena Elardo said all ACMs were tested in each precinct by the electoral board members who will be on duty on May 12.

“We must do the testing and sealing in actual polling centers to simulate the voting experience on election day,” Elardo told reporters.

“After the FTS, these machines will be placed back in designated storage areas in localities,” she noted.

During the FTS, electoral board members checked if the machines were counting correctly, if the ballots printed were readable, and if the votes matched the manual count of the ballots.

“The testing has been successful, and our electoral board members have not encountered a single technical issue, but we have a contingency in case there will be a malfunction of some units on election day,” Elardo added.

During the FTS, there was an end-to-end test of the voting process – from the initialization of the machine to the voting of at least 10 persons (randomly selected among those present), to the feeding of the accomplished ballots to the machine, and finally the printing of election returns.

The new counting machines are tailored to fit the 2025 elections.

Among the new features are an automatic receipt cutter in the machines, headphones and keypads for vulnerable sectors, and a 14-inch touch screen for voters to review their selections.

Elardo concluded that they are now prepared to hold the elections.

Based on Comelec data, there are 2,259,554 registered voters for the midterm polls in the region’s six provinces. (With reports from Anthony Jay C. Abarro, OJTs/PNA)/apl