Poll body: Special elections went well

THE special polls in Basilan, the city of Malolos in Bulacan, and eight municipalities in Lanao del Sur went on smoothly, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Teopisto Elnas, director of the Election and Barangay Affairs Department (EBAD), said that as of noon Saturday, the special polls in certain areas are doing well.

He reported that all the precincts and the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines functioned and the accountable and non-accountable forms arrived on time.

Elnas said they are still waiting for a report of any incident, especially in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm).

"In Lanao and Basilan, our main concern there is peace and order. As of now, from the time of deployment until now we have yet to monitor any untoward incident such as violence or intimidation or whatever," he said.

However, Elnas admitted that some problems occurred, such as the technical difficulty in Hagonoy and Pulilan, Bulacan.

"There was a paper jam which required the PCOS to shut down...then there's these two CF compact flashcards that didn't function before the voting but later on it was also remedied," he said.

More than 20,000 votes in Lanao would only have an effect on the party-list polls.

It would be recalled that the elections in Malolos, Bulacan was postponed weeks before the May 10 elections after the Supreme Court ordered the nullification of the law creating a separate legislative district for the city.

Voters in Basilan were not able to vote for provincial board members due to problems experienced in the printing of candidates name in the official ballots while elections in Lanao del Sur were postponed due to security concerns after both voters and members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) refused to come out last May 10.

The voting started at 7 a.m. and will end at 7 p.m. Saturday. (FP/Sunnex)