MANILA – The Commission on Elections advised overseas voters who are voting by mail to just go to their embassy or consulate if they still have not received their postal ballots with just a few days left to go before polls close on May 9, Philippine time.
Commissioner Marlon Casquejo, head of the Committee on Overseas Filipino Voting, particularly responded to one such report from Cyprus.
"Nagpalabas na po kami ng advisory to all posts na using the mail voting kapag hindi nila natanggap ’yung kanilang balota, they can go to the post or the embassy. Pwede naman sila kumuha ng balota doon they will just sign the waiver and affidavit na di sila nakaboto or di nila natanggap ’yung kanilang balota," Casquejo said.
"It applies, of course, sa ating mail voting."
Casquejo is optimistic that overseas voting this election will exceed previous turnouts.
To date, Casquejo reported that 56,550 votes have been cast in the Americas, 139,041 in Asia Pacific, 41719 in Europe, and148,127 in the Middle East and Africa. That’s 385,437 out of the 1,697,130 votes expected or about 23 percent turnout.
“Overseas voting maganda po ’yung turnout natin, as of today. We already at 23 percent voting turnout so far. Di pa po na-record ’yung iba," Casquejo said.
“With this trend, malamang malalampasan natin ’yung 2016 voting turnout, which is 32 percent, because 23 percent na tayo. Di pa kumpleto ’yung data natin and maybe the reason for that is also with this our vote anywhere concept as of May 5, 2,245 applied for the vote-anywhere concept and the approved 1,791," he added as he explained that the 1,791 already voted under the vote-anywhere scheme.
This scheme so far has 2,245 applicants, of which 1,791 had been approved. A total of 454 were disapproved for having no record as an overseas voter, or having a deactivated overseas voter registration record because of failure to vote in 2 consecutive elections, or being in a post where the applicant intends to vote is using postal voting only.