Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and House Speaker Rep. Lord Allan Velasco have confirmed that the vote consolidation and canvassing system (CCS) machine has reflected zero votes garnered for any of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, and is ready to canvas votes following the national elections on May 9.
“Let the record state that the initialization report shows that for the national canvass for the positions of president and vice president, zero votes have been reflected,” said Sotto during the initialization of the CCS machines on Monday, May 9.
“Let the record show that the initialization process has been completed and that the CCS (consolidation and canvassing system) machine is now ready to receive the electronically transmitted certificates of canvas from the boards of canvassers from the provinces, cities, and overseas posts. And this concludes the initialization process,” Sotto concluded.
In a press interview following the CCS initialization, Velasco speculated that the canvassing may take less than five days.
"I think this isn't going to take that long. If you look at yung mga past canvassing natin, it was done manually. This time it's going to be computerized so you won't see any more whiteboards," Velasco said,.
"I think we're looking at, it won't even reach five days," Velasco added.
Sotto also added that they may be able to proclaim a president and vice president by the 27th of May, or 28 at the latest.
The CCS machine, as its name suggests, is tasked with consolidating and canvassing votes from provinces, municipalities, cities, and overseas posts.
It is the duty of Congress–the Senate and the House of Representatives–to canvas votes and declare the presidential and vice presidential candidates who won the election.