Pagbabago! Cebu fielded monitors to observe the final testing and sealing (FTS) of PCOS machines in two clustered precincts in Cebu City on May 8. The precincts were Guadalupe Elementary School and Ramon Duterte High School.

At least one incident of a defective PCOS machine was reported at the Guadalupe Elementary School. The picture below shows the PCOS machine at Clustered Precinct No. 369 displaying on its screen “Thermal paper printer error”. This error hampered the initialization and testing of ballots.

There were 23 Clustered Precincts at Guadalupe Elementary School yet there were only 5 PCOS technicians.  A technician tried to initialize the machine and test the ballots but failed, forcing the BEI chairman to request a back-up PCOS machine from the Comelec.

Meanwhile, at the Ramon Duterte High School, cases of defective PCOS machines were reported as well as discrepancies between the PCOS machine count and the manual count such as in Clustered Precinct No. 389. The PCOS count had one  less vote compared to the manual count.