A few more visits around more precincts led to the conclusion that the speed of the queue at the clustered precincts depended on the creativity of the Board of Election Inspectors assigned. There were precincts that were practically done by 1PM, mostly “cruising” smoothly to around 400 voters by 3:30PM. Some precincts have dismal progress of only 200 by 4PM.
If you were lucky to have creative BEIs, you were given priority numbers when you got to the precinct, and they would call the next number every time a voter finishes.
Unlucky voters had to contend with “batch” processing where about 20 people are allowed inside the precinct and nobody is allowed to come in until all the 20 people are finished.
Minor PCOS glitches observed were caused by paper jam or ballots not accepted at first try. However, this did not cause a bottleneck because the PCOS machines needed only about 5 to 10 seconds to process each ballot so once the machine is ready again, the queue behind it is gone is a few minutes.
The bottle neck is the queue. The COMELEC forgot about issueing priority numbers which should have helped calm down the crowd and allow others to decide to go home first and come back later. With five precincts clustered, it is obviously going to cause longer lines.
Voters in Dampas, Tagbilaran City waiting for their numbers to be called. Because these voters were given priority numbers from 1 to 1000, they simply have to wait for their numbers to be called.
Impatient voters waiting for their batch at a precinct in Dampas, Tagbilaran City.
