Comelec orders reclustering of precincts

MANILA - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has ordered a reclustering of precincts for the synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on October 28 due to the lack of public school teachers and public school buildings needed for the election.
 
Comelec en banc Resolution 9718 says " the commission foresees the insufficiency of public school teachers who shall serve as members of the board of election tellers and the shortage of public school buildings as voting centers/polling centers ."

The same resolution also says "it is impractical and uneconomical to assign one board of election tellers to established precincts which have a very minimal number of voters."
 
The poll body laid down the guidelines for the reclustering that will be implemented by the election officers:
 
-only established precincts of the same barangay which have the same voting center shall be clustered/grouped;

-daughter precincts shall, as far as practicable, be clustered/grouped with their mother precincts;

-SK precincts shall be distributed/attached to regular clustered/grouped precincts of the same barangay and same voting center with the lowest number of registered voters;

-a maximum of 4 established precincts with no more than 500 voters shall be allowed in each clustered precinct with an SK precinct;

-those without an SK precinct may have a maximum of 3 established precincts but no more than 400 registered voters;

Election officers have until August 19 to finalize and submit the project of precincts for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
 
Unlike national elections, the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections will be manual and will not use the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

The Comelec clusters precincts for the national elections around the number of PCOS machines.