Following complaints from overseas voters in Hong Kong, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday, April 11, said it will push for the opening of more polling precincts in Hong Kong to accommodate more voters.
“By tomorrow, we will have our en banc meeting and surely it will be discussed and we will push for an increase in the number of precincts in order to allow more Filipino voters to vote,” Commissioner George Erwin M. Garcia said during a television interview.
As such, he said the Comelec wants to increase the number of polling precincts so that minimum health and safety restrictions will be observed properly, given the Covid-19 condition in Hong Kong.
The poll commissioner said the post in Hong Kong decided to only have five polling precincts.
“This is what happened, the post in Hong Kong was given the discretion whether to increase the number of precincts from five or more than five. It was done before the actual election yesterday, but our post in Hong Kong had chosen to only establish five precincts,” he explained.
Garcia noted that there are still more vote-counting machines available in Hong Kong, meaning more polling precincts can be opened to cater to more voters.
“Actually, there are additional five more vote-counting machines available to our post there---four additional and one on standby basis, so there are actually 10 vote-counting machines. But it’s actually the decision of the post to establish only five precincts,” he disclosed.
“There is a resolution by the Commission on that, at this point, we are respecting the discretion of the post. However, that is without prejudice to the Hong Kong post or to the Commission, increasing the number of polling precincts, especially there are a lot of Filipinos who wanted to cast their votes yesterday.”
During the first day of overseas absentee voting (OAV) on Sunday, April 10, many Filipino voters in Hong Kong went out to cast their votes, but at noon the allowed capacity of voters recommended by the Hong Kong Police was already reached, prompting the Consulate there to resume the voting the next day.