The voting simulation conducted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on October 23 for the May 2022 polls had a low voter turnout.
In an online forum, Tuesday, Oct. 26, Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez revealed that the activity that they conducted at the San Juan Elementary School only had an 11 percent voter turnout.
"We were hoping to have 4,000 actual voters but we only had around 11 percent voter turnout. That was very low," he said
But, Jimenez said, the simulation is not expected to be a high attendance event.
"Historically, Filipinos have not really bothered to attend simulation exercises," he said.
"Nevertheless, the simulation exercise was pretty important because it allowed us to dry run basically the rolling out for the 2022 elections particularly the whole scenario that we initially rolled out in Palawan for the plebiscite," added Jimenez.
The poll body conducted the simulation as part of its preparatory activities for the May 2022 National and Local Elections.
The Comelec said one of the objectives of the activity was to determine the average time frame in the verification process of the identity of the voters in the Election Day Computerized Voting List (EDCVL) based on 800 registered voters per clustered precinct, in order to come up with proposals aimed to streamline the process of verification for purposes of the May 2022 polls.
During the exercise, the poll body made use of four classrooms as polling precincts, three classrooms as holding areas, with 4,235 test voters.