Poll chief worries over automated elections

MANILA -- With only four months to go before the anticipated automated elections, Comelec chairman Jose Melo admitted Monday that he worries over the circumstances that might occur before the May 2010 poll.

Melo, who regarded these problems as "birth pains," said that from a scale of 1 to 10, the rating of the Commission on Elections' (Comelec) level of preparedness is only 8.

He confessed that he worries on the upcoming use of the 82,200 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines this May. Out of the more than 80 thousand machines, only 7,200 arrived before 2009 ended.

In a news conference Monday, Melo said that apart from the delivery of the remaining machines, there are still some problems that bother him.

"In so far as holding automated elections is concerned, our confidence level is high...but there are these problems. It bothers us also," he said.

Read the whole story at Sunstar.com.ph.