OAV turnout in Europe, Middle East disappointing



By Danny Buenafe, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

LONDON – Barely 20 percent was the turnout of voters in the United Kingdom despite the one-month voting period.
More than 2,500 voted in the UK out of the 11,900 registered voters.
Italy has the biggest number of registered voters in Europe with 31,030. But only 5,000 voted in Italy and most of them wertr based in Rome and Milan.
In Spain, more than a thousand voted out of 7,000 registered voters.
Likewise in France, more than a thousand also voted out of the 4,201 registered voters, and Germany which did not even reach 800.
Overall, the number of voters in Europe did not even reach 11,000 out of the total number of registered voters of 75,666 or barely 14 percent.
And because Europe, except for Greece, involved postal voting, the main problem that occurred was many voters did not receive their election ballot due to change in address.
Embassy officials were disappointed with the very low turnout despite their all-out information election drive.
Philippine Ambassador to UK Enrique Manalo is not giving up, saying the overseas absentee voting should continue.
This despite mounting complaints from certain sectors to review the provisions under the OAV or totally scrap it as it's just a waste of time and resources.
Even in the Middle East which has the biggest number of registered voters for OAV, the turnout is similarly low.
In Jeddah, voters did not even reach 4,000 or 12 percent out of 30,258 registered voters.
In Kuwait, only 11 percent voted or merely 2,374 out of the 23,260 registered voters.

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