One-Month Absentee Voting Overseas Starts Saturday

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is ready for the conduct of the overseas absentee voting (OAV) for Filipinos abroad, which is set to start on Saturday, April 9.

“All systems go for oversees absentee voting,” said the head of the Comelec – Office for Overseas Voting (OFOV) in a text message.

With this, he urged the over 1.3 million registered Filipino overseas voters to participate during the one-month voting period and should not wait for the last minute to vote.

“We are expecting a good turnout from our 1,386,087 overseas voters even as we appeal that they come out and vote early starting April 9 to May 9 and not wait for the last day,” Lim said.

The poll body official added, “Mahalaga ang boto ng bawat isa sa atin at tayo’y makilahok para as kinabukasan ng ating bansa.”

According to the Comelec – OFOV, 30 posts will be utilizing the vote counting machines (VCMs). They are: Agana, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, Ottawa, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, London, Madrid, Milan, Rome, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Doha, Dubai, Jeddah, Kuwait, Manama, Al Khobar, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv.

A total of 26 posts will be using the personal manual voting system, or the manual casting of votes in the designated polling precincts. These are Lisbon, Bangkok, Brunei, Chongqing, Dhaka, Dili, Guangzhou, Islamabad, Jakarta, Macau, Manado, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Taipei, New Delhi, Phnom Penh, Shanghai, Vientiane, Xiamen, Abuja, Amman, Cairo, Muscat, Nairobi, Pretoria, and Tehran.

Another 26 posts overseas will adopt the postal manual voting system, wherein the ballots will be mailed directly to the registered voter, who will then mail it back to the polling center after accomplishing it. They are Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Santiago, Ankara, Athens, Berlin, Berne, Brussels, Budapest, Geneva, Holy See, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Prague, The Hague, Vienna, Warsaw, Beijing, Canberra, Hanoi, Port Moresby, Sydney, Wellington, and Yangon.

The Philippine posts in Baghdad, Damascus, and Tripoli, will have no elections due to prevailing conflicts in the said areas. Instead, the Comelec – OFOV said they will be allowed to cast their votes in adjacent Philippine posts.

Filipinos abroad will be voting for national positions only namely: president, vice-president, senators and party-list group.

The voting will begin on Saturday, April 9 (8 a.m., host country time), to Monday, May 9 (7 p.m., Philippine time). (PNA) RMA/FGP/EDS