BAGUIO CITY — The Cordillera office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) here admitted that lack of funds is the primary cause for the delay in the massive information and education campaign for the approximately million voters in the region and the training for the members of the board of election inspectors with regard to the May 2010 synchronized and automated elections.

Lawyer Julius Torres, Comelec-Cordillera Administrative Region regional director, claimed the poll body has limited resources for the ongoing voters’ information and education so that they will be aware on what to do during the implementation of the first-ever automated elections in the country.

What is compounding the woes of the Comelec in the implementation of the information and education campaign to voters is that only one precinct count optical scan (PCOS) is being used in Regions I, II and the Cordillera, thus, there is a need to resort to shifting in the utilization of the assigned machine thereby resulting to serious delays in the information drive.

The Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM consortium, the winning bidder in the conduct of the automated polls, will provide each region with one PCOS machine in order to steadily push through with their provincial and municipal information drive but such commitment has yet to be fulfilled.

According to Torres, voters education in Baguio and Abra has been done but various sectors are still requesting for the frequent conduct of public demonstration so that they will fully understand what are the do’s and don’ts during election day.