Local absentee voting turnout hits record high of 88% – Comelec

A poll official said on Tuesday that voter turnout for local absentee voting (LAV) reached a record high of 88% in the May 9 elections.

“We’re very glad to announce that the voter turnout for this election for those who registered for the local absentee voting is 88%. This is the highest turnout,” said John Rex Laudiangco, acting spokesperson of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), at a press conference.

He said that the LAV turnout was 74% in 2010, 64% in 2013, and 77% in both the 2016 and 2019 elections. 

The poll body allows government employees and officials, members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), as well as media workers, including photojournalists, documentary makers, technical and support staff, bloggers, and freelance journalists to avail of the LAV.

For this year’s elections, the LAV took place from April 27 to 29.

The Comelec earlier reported that of the 93,819 LAV applicants, most came from the PNP with 48,698, followed by the Philippine Army with 32,786, and Philippine Air Force with 4,261.

Overseas voting

Comelec Commissioner Marlon Casquejo further revealed that the partial voter turnout for overseas absentee voting (OAV) has increased to 34.24% as of Tuesday morning.

Casquejo, who chairs the Eleksyon 2022 steering committee, said that this OAV turnout was already higher than in the 2016 elections. 

“Hindi pa lahat nakapag-submit. Hopefully, baka tataas pa ‘to, we’ll reach 36% or 37% (Not all have submitted yet. Hopefully, this will still increase to 36% or 37%),” he said.

The final OAV turnout may be announced within the week, he added.

Vote counting machines

Moreover, Casquejo told GMA News Online that the Comelec had allocated about 1,900 backup vote counting machines (VMCs), which were separate from the 107,785 VCMs deployed, including those used for the OAV. 

Asked why backup VCMs were not readily available in some areas, he explained that these VCMs could not be transported immediately to other polling precincts which were far away. 

“Most likely, baka ‘yung VCMs na naka-deploy in one province 10 lang, naubos na kaya hindi kaagad napalitan, kailangan muna i-repair. Kasi 1,900 ito. You have to divide it in how many municipalities and cities,” he said.

“‘Yung ibang area, ‘yung maswerteng area, hindi nila nagamit ‘yung VCMs kaya lang malayo. So hindi natin pwede i-pull out, ibigay natin dito sa NCR (National Capital Region) o sa lugar na magkaproblema,” he added.

(Most likely, maybe the backup VCMs deployed in one province were only 10, and when they ran out, they were not replaced immediately and needed to be repaired first. These are 1,900, and we have to divide them into all the municipalities and cities. Other areas were lucky because they did not have to use the backup VCMs, but they are far away. We could not pull them out and transport them to other areas that had problems, like the NCR.)

Casquejo said that 915 VCMs and 469 SD cards malfunctioned during the May 9 polls, but insisted that such a number was "minimal" compared to other elections.

Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said that had Congress allocated them more funds, they would have bought more VCMs to be used in the 2022 elections.

“Kung nabigyan lang po tayo ng sapat na budget na hindi binawasan ng pagkaliit-liit e di sana po nakabili tayo ng mga bagong makina. Napalitan po sana natin itong mga lumang makina na ito,” he said at the Laging Handa briefing.

(If only we had been given enough funds and had not gotten a budget cut, we could have bought new machines. We could have replaced the old machines.)

The Department of Budget and Management reduced the Comelec's 2022 proposed budget of P41.992 billion to P26.497 billion. —VBL, GMA News