The Commission on Elections (Comelec) deleted the ballot database from the servers of the National Printing Office (NPO), marking the official end of the 2022 elections.
The removal of the ballot database was conducted at the NPO with political parties, citizens’ arm groups, members of the media, and other stakeholders as witnesses.
“Now, we’re at the penultimate stage of our operations here at the NPO,” Director James Jimenez, chief of the Comelec Education and Information Department, said during the program.
“From here, we need to pull out of the NPO because tapos na po ‘yong trabaho ng Comelec dito. And in order to do that, one of the last things we need is to remove Comelec data from the NPO servers,” he added.
Jimenez noted that the move was initiated so other projects will be serviced by the NPO.
The former Comelec spokesperson reminded everyone that the polling body will keep backup copies of the ballot face database.
The commission also shut down the automated election system servers and network infrastructure used during the elections.
Meanwhile, the Comelec maintained that no cheating was conducted during the May 9 polls amid several claims that the 2022 elections were “marred by a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system than ever before.”
— Ronald Espartinez