Fill out ballots in 5 minutes or less, Comelec tells voters

IMAGE: Daniella Marie Agacer

MANILA, Philippines — Commissioner George Garcia of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) urges voters to bring with them their guide list of chosen candidates to hasten the voting process on May 9.

Garcia said on Monday that voters should fill out their ballots in less than five minutes to mitigate the expected long queues in polling precincts.

To observe physical distancing due to the pandemic, the Comelec has ordered election inspectors or public school teachers who will man the polling precincts to reduce the number of voters who would be allowed into the voting room or space at any given time.

“They used to allow 10 or 15 voters inside the [polling] precincts before, but maybe now we’ll have just half of that,” Garcia said.

“It will take five to seven minutes if you still have to think over your choices while voting. But if you bring a kodigo, it will take only three minutes,” Garcia said.

The Comelec has extended voting hours by an hour from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. “because we know there will be longer queues starting at the entrance where there’s a temperature check,” he said.

With seven days before the May 9 polls, the Comelec on Monday delivered to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas the “final” trusted build of machine code or software that will be used in the automated election system, for safekeeping in a highly secure vault.

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