By Leslie Ann Aquino
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Office for Overseas Voting (OFOV) noted a higher voter turnout in overseas voting in the May 13, 2019 midterm polls.
Commission on Elections (MANILA BULLETIN)
"The 2019 midterm elections overseas voting turn out is 18.34 percent with 334,242 who actually voted," Comelec OFOV Director Elaiza David said in her twitter account.
"It surpassed the 15.63 percent turnout in the 2013 midterm elections with 115,318 who actually voted," she added.
Earlier, Comelec Spokesman James Jimenez already expressed confidence that overseas voting would be slightly higher.
"Our overseas workers saw their big impact in the 2016 elections and since then their level of engagement did not decrease," he said that time.
Data from the Comelec OFOV revealed that in the last two midterm polls (2007 and 2013), voter turnout were only about 16 percent.
The numbers were comparatively lower when compared to the presidential elections to the 2004 (64 percent), 2010 (26 percent), and 2016 (31 percent) which drew higher turnouts.
There were 1,822,173 registered overseas absentee voters in the recent midterm polls. #MatalinongBoto2019