ILOILO City – Voting in today’s midterm elections runs for 12 hours starting at 6 a.m. To weed out “flying” voters or the dead from voting, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is pilot testing the use of voters’ registration verification machines (VRVM) in vote-rich Iloilo and Negros Occidental provinces, and the cities of Iloilo and Bacolod.
A total of 4.8 million registered voters in Western Visayas are expected to troop to 3,554 voting centers in 4,051 barangays or 133 municipalities and cities, data from Comelec showed.
At 1,889,200 Negros Occidental has the most number of registered voters in Region 6 followed by Iloilo (including Iloilo City) with 1,525,160; Capiz with 513,329; Aklan with 390,360; Antique with 371,244; and Guimaras with 119,541.
The VRVM will verify each voter’s identity through the biometrics data (fingerprints) submitted, according to Atty. Mavil Majarucon-Sia, Iloilo City election officer.
But what happens if the VRMV malfunctions or could not verify the voter’s identity and registration?
The Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) of the precinct would resort to manual verification, said Majarucon-Sia.
“If the name is still not on the list, then probably the voter does not belong to that particular clustered precinct,” she said.
If the name could still not be located despite all efforts made, “then probably the voter had been deactivated,” said Majarucon-Sia.
As a rule, voters are deactivated from Comelec’s list after failing to vote in two successive most recent elections.
VOTE EARLY
Comelec advises voters to vote early and not wait for the last hour. Voting ends at 6 p.m.
Positions at stake are for senator, congressman, governor, vice governor, mayor, vice mayor, members of the provincial / municipal / city sanggunian, and party-list.
Once the voter’s identity and registration has been verified, said Majarucon-Sia, a verification receipt would be printed for submission to the BEI chairman.
Without the verification receipt, the BEI chairman would not issue the official ballot, she stressed.
“Voters must fully shade the ovals of their chosen candidates in their ballots. Also, I would like to remind them to examine first their ballots to avoid issues like pre-shading,” she added.
After the oval-shading is completed, the voter should feed the ballot the vote counting machine (VCM). The third member of the BEI would be present to assist the voter.
The voter should wait for the voter’s receipt (VR) to come out of the machine. In the meantime, the voter’s finger will be marked with an indelible ink to signify that he/she had already voted.
Upon receiving the VR, the voter must review if indeed the machine has counted his/her votes.
After the voter has verified its accuracy, the receipt should be dropped to a receptacle bin.
“That’s the end of the voting process. The voter could now leave the precinct,” said Majarucon-Sia.
NATIONAL DATA
A total of 18,072 national and locals positions are at stake.
Voters will be electing 12 senators and 61 seats for party-list organizations.
For local polls, registered voters will be selecting 245 members of the House of Representatives, 81 governors and vice governors and 780 members of Provincial Boards.
Also at stake are 145 seats for city mayor and vice mayor; 1,628 for city councilor; 1,489 for municipal mayors and vice mayors; and 11,916 for municipal councilors.
The country now has a total of 61,843,771 registered voters while there are a total of 1,822,173 voters overseas.
A total of 85,768 VCMs would be used in the same number of clustered precincts nationwide.
There are 7,000 VCMs as contingency.
An approximate 255,000 teachers or Election Boards will be serving nationwide today. (With a report from the Philippine News Agency/PN)
