By Leslie Ann Aquino
The Commission on Elections has initially pegged the voter turnout in the May 13 midterm polls at 74.89 percent.
Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez
(MANILA BULLETIN)
In a press briefing, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said this translates to 46,343,423 voter turnout from the certificates of canvass that they have already canvassed so far.
“We are on track to meet the 75 percent projection we said earlier,” he said.
For local absentee voting, the Comelec placed the turnout at 77.08% or 22,605 voters out of the 29,326 registered voters.
While for the Office for Overseas Voting, the voter turnout for manual election is at 20.66% or 21,368.
As of Sunday, the Comelec en banc, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, already canvassed 162 COCs out of the 167 total.
Pending COCs to be canvassed are Isabela Province, Japan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, USA (Washington DC), and Abuja, Nigeria.
According to Jimenez, the five remaining COCs total to 1.6 million registered voters.
“Right off the bat, you know that this is still a significant vote. That’s why we have to wait for it. It will affect the outcome,” he said.
Senatorial candidates currently occupying the 11 to 13th spots in the latest partial official tally of the Comelec are Bong Revilla, Nancy Binay, and JV Ejercito.
There are more than 63 million registered voters in the 2019 midterm polls.
Jimenez, on the special elections in Isabela, said: “As of 10 am we already have 50 percent of the registered vote having already turned out. So far, no reports of any problems with the VCMs (vote counting machines) although for purposes of readiness we do have prepositioned contingency machines. We are ready for anything to happen there,” he said.
The Comelec earlier ordered the holding of special elections in Jones, Isabela due to the intentional burning of the VCMs in the area on Election Day.
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