The two-day meeting, which will end on June 4, is the second of the series of their conferences since the creation of a Regional Coordinating Council (RCC).

The council, organized after their meeting last May 17 in Cotabato City, is tasked to lay down strategies improve the monitoring of elections in the region, often marred by irregularities and other electoral fraud.

The council is composed of poll watchdogs, including the Citizens Coalition for ARMM Electoral Reforms (Citizens CARE) and church-led Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), and other civil society groups in the ARMM.

Also, the group is composed of the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), Bishops-Ulama Council (BUC), Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS), Legal Network for Truthful Election (LENTE), and Bangsamoro Lawyers Network (BLN).

The Citizens CARE is the lead convener and its chair, Salic Ibrahim, is the council’s coordinating team leader.

"For an election marred by irregularities and fraud, it is imperative that advocates for electoral reforms discuss election positioning before the conduct of the elections," said Ibrahim Salic, chair of the C-CARE.

The council, in their first conference last May this year, had laid down what they termed was an ‘electoral reform road map,’ which serves as their guide on how to conduct monitoring of the ARMM polls this August.

It is expected during their meeting on June 3 that advocates brainstorm what they can possibly do to contribute in ensuring free, orderly, and honest elections in the region.

Also, during the meeting, participants would be oriented on poll automation.

Ibrahim said that it is crucial that they learn how frauds can be detected using computers or machines.

Technical experts from two suppliers of the machines — Smartmatic-Sahi Technologies, Inc., and the Avanti International Technologies Inc. are expected to join the conference.

The technologies include the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) and the Optical Mark-sense Reader (OMR).

The DRE system uses touch-screen or touch-pad technology and is fully automated. The OMR technology requires voters to fill out a paper ballot which will be scanned by specially designed machines.