Manila, April 25 -- All towns and cities in Negros Oriental will have contingency automated counting machine (ACM) units as backup during the May 12 polls, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said Friday.

Comelec-Negros Island Region (NIR) Director Lionel Marco Castillano told the Philippine News Agency that this is a deviation from previous elections where a "generic" contingency unit was used to cater to different areas.

"The contingency ACMs, this time, are programmed for specific use only in its assigned town or city and cannot be transferred to other places, unlike in the past," Castillano said.

He noted that only about 20 contingency voting machines were assigned to Negros Oriental in the 2022 elections and they were tra...