The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday announced that they have completed the tally of overseas votes.

Comelec Commissioner Arthur Lim yesterday said all the 58 of 82 Certificates of Canvass (COCs) and statements of votes have been sent to the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) and have been presented to the authorized representatives of the candidates. “Susumahin na po ang bawat boto ng kandidato (The votes will now be totaled), and this will be presented through a canvassing report that NBOC will issue in due course.” Lim said that the said report will likely be presented on Monday.

Lim recalled that the total number of overseas voter turnout is 432,706, or the second highest at 40 percent since overseas absentee voting was implemented in 2004. “It is very substantial and important number. As to how this will affect in the VP election, we will all know that after the congress have canvassed the results,” he said.

However, Lim revealed that transmitting votes from overseas and making the Filipinos abroad vote were not easy tasks. Lim said votes from Tel Aviv in Israel had to be manually transmitted since the government of Israel is blocking the transmission of encrypted data for security reasons. Minor issues also surfaced for Hongkong and Taiwan due to the Philippines’ One China Policy. Ballots also had to be mailed in countries in North and South America where there are only few Filipinos so they can vote. However, some ballots still have not reached the voters in some countries in Latin America and Africa. Lim said these ballots were mailed as early as February but the postal services just keep on saying that the ballots are still being delivered.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos

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