Brillantes, Padaca cast vote under absentee voting scheme

Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. and elections commissioner Grace Padaca cast their votes Monday, second day of local absentee voting of the May 2013 elections.

MANILA, Philippines – Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. cast his vote Monday during the local absentee voting for all those who would be on duty on the day of the elections.

Those entitled for local absentee are policemen, soldiers, members of the media, teachers, and Comelec officials who would be working on the day of the elections on May 13, 2013.

Commissioner Grace Padaca also cast her vote with Brillantes. They voted using manual voting instead of the automated system.

Brillantes told reporters after he voted that it was his first time to be an absentee voter. He said that he voted for nine senators and only two partylists.

“I decided to go local absentee because I thought I might not be able to vote on election day, and also I am not much interested in the local [elections],” Brillantes said.

Local absentee voters are allowed to vote only for national positions.

According to records of the Committee on Local Absentee Voting (CLAV), a total of 18,332 applications for local absentee were received nationwide as of April 21, 2013.

However, only 12,732 were found to have active registration status while 1,033 were not found in the National List of Registered Voters (NLRV) and 2,829 had deactivated registration status for failure to vote in two successive elections.

Local absentee voting runs from April 28 Sunday up to April 30 Tuesday.