All You Need To Know: How to cast your vote

N OW that Filipinos are used to an auto mated election system, many have expressed concern that confusion and other problems may arise as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reverts to manual the upcoming Barangay (village) and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Elections on May 14.

On his blog site, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said around 5 million from the estimated 20 million SK voters are first time voters and unless they are paying attention to the news, they would not know that "the ballots they will receive won't even resemble what they are expecting."

Since the upcoming elections will not be automated unlike in the May 2016 polls, Jimenez reminded the public that there are no ovals to shade and that voters will have to write the names of the candidates they will be choosing.

Choose the right ballot There are two ballots. One is for the Barangay elections and the other one is for the SK elections.

Voters aged 15 to 17 years old will only receive one ballot, the SK ballot.

Voters aged 18-30 years old will use two ballots, both the SK and Barangay ballots.

Voters 31 years old and above will get only one ballot, the Barangay ballot.

Take note of the differences on these ballots.

The text in the ballot for the Barangay Elections (right) is printed in black while the text in the official ballot for the SK polls is printed in red (left) except for the instructions, which is also printed in black.

Also note that the Barangay polls ballot has Arabic translation. This is intended for the Mindanaoan voters.

The position titles listed on the ballot for Barangay polls are Punong Barangay and Kagawad.

For SK, the positions are Chairperson, Sangguniang Kabataan and Member, Sangguniang Kabataan.

The voters do not have to inform the Board of Election Tellers as to how many ballots they should receive as the said data is already indicated in the list of voters.

The ballots that will be used in Luzon and the Visayas are dated October 2017 as these were printed for the postponed 2017 Barangay and SK elections last year, while the ballots for Mindanao will bear the correct date.

The ballots for the region were not printed last year as the elections in Mindanao were postponed due to the declaration of martial law in the region.

As part of Comelec's voter information and education campaign, Jimenez said he asked television host Boy Abunda to do a video on which ballot to use and how the ballots should be used.

According to Jimenez, ballot "neatness" is important in the forthcoming manual polls.

If you want your votes to be counted, you should:

1. Keep your ballot clean.

2. Do not draw unnecessary marks on your ballot.

3. Write the name of the candidates as it appears on the official list of candidates.

4. After voting, fold the ballot as you received it and immediately

5. Return the ballot to the Board of Election Tellers.