Comelec extends voting by 3 hours
Posted on January 1st, 2010
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has decided to extend the voting hours in the coming election on May 10. The Comelec said it will extend voting by three hours in order to accommodate a large numbers of voters in the clustered precincts.
The poll body released its General Instructions recently saying that voting precincts will be open from 7 a.m. on May 10, and will close at 6 p.m., 3 hours longer from the 3 p.m. deadline they used to have. Voting period is stretched by the order up to 11 hours.
The commission also said that should there be a long queue at 6 p.m., election workers should extend the voting hours even longer. “If at six o’clock there are still voters within thirty meters in front of the polling place who have not yet cast their votes, voting shall continue but only to allow said voters to cast their votes without interruption,” the Comelec said.
The Comelec said poll clerks will make a list of the names of those voters, who will be then called three times. “Any voter in the list who is not present when called shall not be allowed to vote at a later time,” the poll body warned.
There used to be over 340,000 voting precincts nationwide, however, these will be reduced to 80,000 this year. Clustering three to five precincts into just one voting cell, depending on the size of the municipality. Each clustered precinct is expected to have 1,000 voters, said the Comelec. There used to be about 200 voters per precinct, when voting and counting were done manually in the past elections.
The clustering of precincts was done by the Comelec to save on costs of leasing the ballots scanning and vote counting machine.
As in the past, the Comelec will allow watchers from political parties, candidates, and election watchdogs to observe and record the proceedings inside the voting centers.
