30T register for local absentee voting

SOME 30,000 individuals have registered in the local absentee voting (LAV) for the May 10, 2010 national and local elections.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, head of the committee on LAV, said the figures are only partial as they are still collating the data from the local Comelec offices nationwide.

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The figure is only half of those who registered in the 2007 polls.

“Compared to 2007 na umabot ng 60,000 plus, ito ay 30,000 pa lang,” he said.

The deadline for LAV registration was last March 15.

Sarmiento said among the possible reasons for the low number of registrants is that they will use the manual election system and the lack of information campaign as some of the people are not familiar with the LAV.

“Puwedeng isang dahilan yan kung bakit naging kaunti kasi mas gusto ma-try yung precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines,” he said.

Those who will avail of the LAV will be casting their votes ahead of the country from April 24 to 26. Election Day is May 10.

Under the law, those who are qualified to participate in the LAV are government officials and employees as well as members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.

In the LAV, voters will only vote for president, vice president, senators, and party-list representatives.

Votes casts are going to be manually counted, transmitted, and canvassed.

Republic Act 7166 was created in order to accommodate those who are registered voters but may be temporarily assigned to perform election duties on Election Day. (FP/Sunnex)