AVOID LONG LINES, VOTE EARLY, SAYS COMELEC
Voting will end at 3 p.m., but voters who are still in line will have to be accommodated, says poll body
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) advised voters who will cast their votes on Monday to go early, to avoid long queues.
Atty. Gallardo Escobar, Cebu City North District election officer, said voting will take less than five minutes for most voters.
“They should be early to avoid the long lines because the tendency is, people usually troop to the polling centers a few hours before these will be closed,” he said.
He said that if there will be no hitches, voting centers may already be open as early as 7 a.m.
“At 6 a.m., those who will serve in the election should already be in their respective clustered precincts to prepare for the opening of the voting proper, or even earli- er than that,” he said.
A voting center can accommodate up to 400 voters if the barangay is big.
The number of voters in one classroom is not fixed because the voting populations of the barangays vary, he said.
Voters will have eight hours before the electoral board will close the precincts at 3 p.m.
However, those who are near the polling centers at closing time will still be accommodated.
“The poll clerk should see to it that those who are still lining up even after 3 p.m. will still be accommodated because that’s really the usual scenario. We really have last-minute voters. But we will still accommodate them,” he said.
If voting in one clustered precinct cannot start after 12 noon, Escobar said they can postpone the voting and reschedule it to the following day.
Escobar said polling precincts will close at 3 p.m. to give the electoral board time to count the votes.
Once all votes are in, Escobar said, the counting will follow in the clustered precincts.
After the counting, Escobar said the electoral board will prepare the election returns and submit these to the barangay board of canvassers.
Once all clustered precincts in a barangay will submit their election returns, Escobar said the barangay board of canvassers can already proclaim the winners.
All of these, Escobar said, might take place in less than 24 hours if there are no major glitches.
Comelec says that if there will be no major problem in a precinct, the counting can immediately start after 3 p.m. and winners may be declared in the evening.