MANY market vendors attended the election education forum conducted at the vegetable section of the Baguio City Public Market Monday.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) representatives Anita Navalta and Encarnacion Dalilis together with lawyer Jae dela Cruz of Bantay Automation Bantay Eleksyon (B.A.B.E) discussed the automated election system to members of the Baguio-Benguet Market Plaza Cooperative Multipurpose (Bamapcom).
“This forum is primarily to educate those active voters who are in the public market, most especially storeowners and vendors who are restricted by their jobs to attend [other similar] seminars,” Bamapcom chairperson Marylith Pagaduan said.
Pagaduan added most of the voters in the city market are worried of the new voting process.
“That’s why we have to conduct the forum and invite knowledgeable people [to talk] about the automated elections so concerns of market vendors on ballot security, rejection of ballots fed to the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines will be addressed.”
Bamapcom members were also showed audio-visual presentations which answered their concerns about the coming polls.
Meanwhile, Baguio election supervisor Modesto Bahul said the Comelec will have succeeding voter’s education seminars catering to those who do not have the time to attend public forums.
The Comelec also demonstrated the use of the PCOS machine which automatically registers and counts a voter’s ballots and brings it to a centralized system.
“We will be the one to assist our voters with the new system as it is very important to make their ballots count,” Bahul said. (JM Agreda)