As partial and unofficial counts were released on election night on May 9, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said that it is expecting to exceed the voter turnout it garnered back in the May 2016 elections.
In a press briefing on Monday night, Comelec Acting Spokesperson John Rex C. Laudiangco shared that historically, presidential elections produce a high voter turnout and that it cannot be compared to the 2019 midterm elections. That being said, Laudiangco stated that they expect an 80 percent voter turnout.
"Kita naman sa turnout na nirereport sa amin, pila ng tao, gaano kaaga nagsidating ang tao, actually tuloy tuloy maghapon napupuno mga presinto (You can see it in the turnout reported to us, the long queues, how early they arrived, actually polling precincts were constantly packed the whole day)," he said.
What he can also compare from this election to the previous one is that their response time to incidence of violence were short since the police and military forces were able to respond to cases of possible election-related violence.
Meanwhile, he also mentioned that voters who wanted to experience feeding their ballots to Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) personally contributed to the crowding experienced in some polling centers even after voting hours had ended.
Laudiangco said that voters stayed at their polling precincts waiting for the machines which were sent out to be replaced to come back so they can personally feed their ballots.
"Most of them po pumayag naman pong ilagay doon sa (agreed to put them inside the) receptacle provided for the ballots na iba-batch feeding (that will be batch-fed)," he said.
"But for those who opted to hold on to their ballots, because we will not allow them to take this out, they will remain inside the polling place, they were already queued doon sa (there at) VCMs that were already functioning," he added.
Laudiangco also explained that the VCMs were not much of a problem back in 2019 since they were still relatively new at that time since they were just used in the 2016 presidential elections.
Since they were manufactured around in 2015 he stated that they really expect issues to occur with it.
"The proof of that preparation and expectations is that our GI which incorporate contingency measures, and the separate contingency resolution were promulgated months before. We had anticipated problems, we had anticipated the issues concerned," he added.