BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Today, about 2,000 absentee voters in Negros Occidental are expected to cast their ballots in designated precincts, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
The absentee voting runs for three days or until April 29.
Among the absentee voters are government employees who will perform election duties on May 9 and are assigned to places other than where they are registered.
They include active members of the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Bureau of Fire Protection, and Philippine Coast Guard, Comelec personnel, and journalists.
Absentee voters will vote manually for national positions only: president, vice president, senators and party-list.
All the ballots will be submitted to the Comelec central office in Metro Manila.
The counting of votes will be done manually, too, according to Atty. Roberto Salazar, Negros Occidental provincial election supervisor, unlike the regular voters who, on May 9, will have their votes tabulated by Voting Counting Machines (VCMs).
Meanwhile, the voting public can now find their polling precinct through the Comelec online precinct finder.
Comelec launched the precinct finder on April 22.
Upon entering the website, voters are asked to provide their location, name, and place of registration. This will show the voter’s status along with the location and number of the precinct.
On April 25, however, an official of Comelec appealed for understanding as the poll body’s online precinct finder suffered glitches.
“The precinct finder was just activated last Friday but due to scores of people immediately using it, certain problems were detected,” said Commissioner George Erwin Garcia./PN