Election Final Testing and Sealing

1. FINAL TESTING
AND SEALING
(Sec. 50 to 55, COMELEC Reso No. 10460)
FINAL TESTING
AND SEALING
(Sec. 50 to 55, COMELEC Reso No. 10460)

2. 2
Purpose of FTS
To determine if the
machines can
correctly count

3. 3
Schedule of FTS
Between
May 6
and
May 10

4. 4

5. 5
Equipment and
Materials Involved
• All the 85,000 vote counting
machines (VCMs), which is the
same number of clustered
precincts all over the country; and
• More than 1.1 million ballots for
the FTS process, specifically
marked as “FTS Ballots”.

6. 6
Procedure of FTS
• 10 actual voters will be asked to vote at the polling
stations.
• They will accomplish specially marked FTS
Ballots, which will be similar to the ballots that will
be used for the May 13 elections.
• These 10 FTS Ballots will be fed by the voters into
the VCMs.
• The voter receipt will come out.

7. 7
• After casting the votes, the results will be counted
manually and will be compared to the results
produced by the machines.
• The transmission system will also be tested.
• After the process, the Comelec will then seal and
lock the VCMs, which will not be opened again
until the start of polls on May 13.
Procedure of FTS

8. What will be conducted will be an end-to-end test of the
process—from the initialization of the machines, to the
voting, to the feeding of the accomplished ballots to the
VCMs, and until the printing of election returns (ERs).
Summary of FTS
8

9. Hence, ballots will be marked, the ballots will be fed,
diagnostics will be run on the machines. The
transmission system will also be tested to know if the
transmission works in that area or if there are issues
that need to be addressed.
9

10. 10
Other important notes:
• The ballots to be used for testing
the VCMs will be properly and
specifically marked as “FTS
Ballots” so as not to confuse them
with the official ballots that will be
used on election day.

11. 11
Other important notes:
• Aside from the 85,000 VCMs, the
Comelec has readied about 7,000
VCMs as contingency, which will
be deployed to the provincial
election supervisor.
• COMELEC will be using again the
VCMs that were first utilized in the
2016 elections.