The Commission on Election (COMELEC) said that they will be re-using the Optical Mark Reader technology as the primary voting system to be used in the 2016 Presidential elections. The announcement was given by Chairman Sixto Brillantes Tuesday, September 2, 2014 afternoon during the en banc meeting. This news is base on ABS-CBN.
He also said that the en banc have decided to adopt the general recommendation of the Comelec Advisory Council. This is to re-use the existing technology in 2016 Presidential election in the country. However, based on him, the sad machines will be subject to rigorous quality assurance and other testing processes.
The said Commission is currently looking to purchase or lease of 10,000 to 41,000 additional PCOS machines to be added in the existing 80, 000 purchased machines. Somehow, the number will be dependent on the decision to decrease the number of voters per precinct.
“If 600 voters per precinct we may need about 41,000 more. If 800 naman, mas konti between 10 to 15,000 (new PCOS machines),” he said.
For the addition machines, the said commission is already set to start their bidding soon.
Aside from that, the commission is also set to pilot secondary technology which is the Direct Electronic Recording (DRE). It is a technology that uses a touch screen.
This will serve as a preparation for a more advanced voting system in the future.
However, this will just be used in the highly urbanized country commonly Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao. This is also a very expensive machine.
Comelec is also looking into internet voting for OFW’s.
But then, nothing is still confirmed as of now. The comelec is still in it’s finalization stage.
