Survey on mall voting set

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will conduct a survey on whether or not Filipino voters approve of the proposed mall-based voting in the May 2016 elections.

“We want to know what the public, specifically the voters, think about this novel idea of having elections being held in the various malls all over the country,” said Comelec Chair Andres Bautista in a press briefing.

According to him, the survey will be done on the Comelec website (www.comelec.gov.ph) beginning next week.

Based on the Comelec’s preliminary assessment, voting in shopping malls is beneficial to the government and the voters, Bautista said.

“There are more strengths than weaknesses and there are more opportunities than threats,” he said. “But we are still studying this. We’ll make sure that stakeholders will be consulted before we actually implement this.”

The poll body has already formed a technical working group that would look into the legal, operational and logistical aspects of mall-based voting.