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By Anthony Vargas, Reporter
A series of poll automation demonstrations is
set to be conducted in the Metro next week, the Commission on
Elections (Comelec) said.
Automated machines, which will be used in the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections slated next
month, will be made available to Metro Manila residents to prepare
the voters for possible automated 2010 presidential elections.
Comelec spokesman Director James Jimenez said
the demonstrations of the automated election technologies would
start on July 7, Monday, until the conclusion of the ARMM elections
is set on August 11.
The poll automation demonstrations will have two
sessions daily and will be held at the Comelec Automated Electoral
System Information Office at the Comelec’s office in Intramuros,
Manila.
Each session will run for one hour. The first
session will be held from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., while the next session
will be conducted from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
But because of limited seats, the Comelec
spokesman advised the public to schedule their visits by calling the
Comelec at 525-9294 or 525-9301.
Comelec educators and representatives from
Smartmatic-SAHI and Avante International representatives will
administer actual trainings on the usage of electronic voting
machines and automated counting machines.
Video presentations and tutorials will be
also shown to further stir interest of the participants.
The two technologies are called the Optical Mark
Reader (OMR) system and the Direct Recording Electronic System (DRE).
The DRE system of Smartmatic-SAHI in
Maguindanao province will use a touch-screen or a touch-pad
technology and is fully automated from voting to counting and final
transmission of the results to canvassing centers from the
provincial up to regional levels.
The OMR system of Avante International
requires voters to fill out a paper ballot that would be scanned by
specially designed machines. It will be used in the rest of ARMM
provinces.
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