5 April 2022, Dubai, UAE – It’s all systems go for the 2022 National Elections at the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai (Dubai PCG) as it conducted successful Final Testing and Sealing (FTS) of the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) on 2 April 2022 at the Rizal Hall of the Consulate.

The activity, which is in accordance with Commission on Election (COMELEC) Resolution No. 10751, was attended by members of the media, poll watchers, and volunteers who also served as test voters during the mock voting portion of the activity.

At the media and poll watchers briefing held prior to the event, Vice Consul Elizabeth P. Ramos underscored the importance of the FTS process as it tests the accuracy of the VCMs and its proper operations in preparation for the overseas voting that will start on 10 April 2022 and end on 9 May 2022. She also noted that there are 191,779 registered voters in Dubai which is the highest number in the region, and encouraged the registered overseas voters to vote early and not wait until the last minute to cast their votes.

The Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEI) members, as deputized representatives of the COMELEC conducted an end-to-end test on ten (10) VCMs assigned to them for this year’s overseas election. The FTS process included the installation of the VCM, the performance of the diagnostic procedure, facilitation of voting, closing of voting, re-zeroing of the VCM, and the manual verification of results. All ten VCMs were working properly.

The volunteers and poll watchers considered the overall procedure of the FTS and conduct of mock voting as satisfactory. END