Two voting-counting machines (VCM) in the towns of Ubay and Carmen have malfunctioned on Election Day, authorities have reported.

According to Melchie Butron of Comelec Ubay, they were no longer able to use the VCM in Precinct 50 in Barangay Katarungan starting at 9 a.m. as it repeatedly caused paper jams.

“Ganina sige siya’g paper jam multiple times sige nila’g bira. Siga sila’g bira unya ma okay ang machine, feed na pud, ma okay na pud then jam na pud hantod ni-abot sa point na naay nigawas na plastic unya dili na jud siya mo dawat,” said Butron.

The precinct has instead collected the filled up ballots of voters and sealed these in an envelope.

She added that they are awaiting orders from the COMELEC’s Election Monitoring & Action Center (CEMAC) how to address the issue.

“Karon ga manual voting ta. Gipa sud nalang sa envelope kay ga waiting pa mi sa CEMAC kay wala man miy mahimo og dili mo hatag ang CEMAC og authority,” said Butron.

Precinct 50 has a total of 501 registered voters.

Meanwhile a VCM at the clustered precinct 30 in Barangay Nueva Vida Norte in Carmen, was believed to have overheated on Monday morning.

The machine shut down on its own after it was noticeably hot, said Carmen election officer Marcelo Tumanda.

“Ni-init man to unya napawong,” he aded.

The machine however turned on again after it was cooled off using an electric fan. (AD)