We enter the final week of the campaign

WE have finally entered the final week of the campaign for posts in the May 13 midterm elections. This Saturday, the candidates will pour their final resources into their efforts to win the government positions they seek. After Sunday, a day of rest, we go to the polls on Monday to vote starting at 6 a.m.

For the record, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said last Tuesday that voters will elect 12 new members of the Senate, 61 party-list organizations and 244 district congressmen for the House of Representatives. In the local elections, voters will elect 81 governors and 81 vice governors, 780 members of provincial boards, 1,634 city or town mayors, 1,634 vice mayors, and 13,544 city or town council members.

Because our elections have been automated since 2010, the results should be known within weeks, instead of months as in the past. The Comelec said the 12 new senators will be known and proclaimed within two weeks. The winning local officials should be known and proclaimed within days.

There are lingering doubts in some quarters about the reliability of automated elections but the Comelec, with its new chairman, has assured strict adherence to security measures that are

now in place. We must see to it that there is no repetition of lapses in the past, such as the unofficial opening of the count just to correct the spelling of a candidate’s name in 2016.

The police are also on alert, especially with regards to local elections where candidates and their supporters are generally more passionate in their campaign efforts. The Philippine National Police has identified 941 such hotspots where it has assigned additional personnel.

More widespread than poll violence is the claim of vote buying. Where many people are poor, this will be a factor, but it should be less so now that so many more people are better informed through new on-line along with traditional media.

We look forward to the coming midterm elections which are at the heart of our democracy. There were attempts some months ago to cancel them in favor of concentrating our efforts on revision of the Constitution, but that was decisively set aside.

We will thus go to the polls on Monday, May 13, hopeful that violence will be held down to a minimum, confident that they will truly reflect the wishes of our people, and proud that we are among a handful of nations that are governed by officials chosen in free elections.