Comelec 11 90% ready for polls
THE Commission on Elections (Comelec 11) is 90 percent ready for the conduct of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on May 14, with a total of 37,162 candidates and 3,775,533 projected voters.
Data obtained from Comelec 11 showed that of the 37,162 candidates, who filed their certificates of candidacy (COCs), 573 are running for barangay head and 21,252 for councilor; while 2,982 for SK head and 10,355 for councilor.
Comelec 11 spokesperson lawyer Krisna Samantha Caballero said no one has so far filed a disentitlement against certain candidate, but there are those candidates who had filed for withdrawal on the last minute of the filing of COC.
There are 3,775,533 registered voters in the region - 1,223,575 in Davao City; 530,036 in Davao del Sur; 230,901 in Davao Occidental; 741,082 in Davao del Norte; 589,685 in Compostela Valley; and 460,254 in Davao Oriental.
Comelec 11 noted 2,800,614 barangay level voters and 974,919 SK voters in the region. It has also established 37,648 precincts, of which 18,973 for barangay level elections and 18,675 for SK
level elections within 1,162 barangays.
The poll body has also accounted a total of 24,918 board of election inspectors (BEIs) in the region. The Department of Education (Deped) 11 also provided about 3,000 public school teachers that will serve as electoral board members.
In Davao City, there are 3,243 electoral board members in the first district; 2,589 electoral board members in second district; 2,367 in third district, while there are 182 Barangay Boards of Canvassers (BBOC) for the May election.
Comelec 11 assistant director lawyer Marlon Casquejo earlier said the voting and counting in the May 14 election will be manual, thus, the need for the BEIs to be re-oriented on the rules in appreciating and counting the ballots.
"Ninety percent ready because as of now our BEIs are undergoing training and instruction on the manual voting, counting ballots, canvassing, and proclamation of the barangay/SK candidates who will win after the election," Caballero said.ICT(For full story visit www.sunstar.com.ph/ davao/)