Comelec eyes higher absentee voting turnout in 2016 polls

MANILA, Philippines - More Filipinos abroad are expected to come out and participate in the May 2016 elections.

Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista over the weekend said the Comelec is eyeing higher turnout for the overseas absentee voting (OAV).

Bautista said Filipinos abroad are not only expected to register but also actually participate and vote in the coming elections.

“We are also trying to beat that of the voter turnout. We are targeting hopefully at least half-a-million to vote for the 2016 elections,” Bautista said.

In 2010 national and local polls, Comelec posted a 25.99 voter turnout or a total of 153,323 voted out of the 589,830 who registered for the OAV.

In the 2013 midterm polls, the Comelec only recorded 16.11 percent voter turnout when 118,823 Filipinos voted out of the 737,759 registered voters in the OAV.

For next year’s elections, the Department of Foreign Affairs – Overseas Voting Secretariat (DFA-OVS) reported a total of 1,400,767 who registered in various foreign service posts, Manila cultural offices, and local overseas voter registration centers.

The Comelec said it’s the first time the country exceeded one million active overseas registered voters.

Comelec – Office for Overseas Voting (OFOV) head Commissioner Arthur Lim earlier announced the poll body’s plan to implement OAV mobile voting to promote a higher voter turnout.

Under the planned mobile voting system, members of the OAV Board of Election Inspectors would be bringing the vote counting machines to areas with large concentrations of Filipinos.

There will also be voting in Philippine embassies and consulates via the personal manual and automated voting; and mail voting, where accomplished ballots are mailed.