Overseas absentee voting starts Saturday

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is all set to conduct the overseas absentee voting (OAV) for registered voters living abroad.
Absentee voters will be voting for national positions only namely: president, vice-president, senators and party-list.
Voting will begin on Saturday, April 9 (8 a.m., host country time), to Monday, May 9 (7 p.m., Philippine time).
"All systems go for oversees absentee voting," said the head of the Comelec – Office for Overseas Voting in a text message.
With this, he urged the over 1.3 million registered Filipino overseas voters to participate during the one-month voting period and should not wait for the last minute to vote.
"We are expecting a good turnout from our 1,386,087 overseas voters even as we appeal that they come out and vote early starting April 9 to May 9 and not wait for the last day," Elections Commissioner Arthur Lim, chairperson of the Comelec Office of the Overseas Voting Secretariat, said.
"Mahalaga ang boto ng bawat isa sa atin at tayo'y makilahok para as kinabukasan ng ating bansa," he added
A total of 30 diplomatic posts which serve as polling centers will be utilizing vote counting machines (VCMs). These are: Agana (Guam), Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, Ottawa, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, London, Madrid, Milan, Rome, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Beirut (Lebanon), Doha (Qatar), Dubai (UAE), Jeddah, Kuwait, Manama (Bahrain), Al Khobar (Saudi Arabia), Riyadh, and Tel Aviv (Israel).

Personal manual voting will be done in 26 diplatic posts such as: Lisbon (Portugal), Bangkok, Brunei, Chongqing (China), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Dili (East Timor), Guangzhou (China), Islamabad (Pakistan), Jakarta, Macau, Manado (Indonesia), Kaohsiung (Taiwan), Taichung (Taiwan), Taipei, New Delhi, Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Shanghai, Vientiane (Laos), Xiamen (China), Abuja (Nigeria), Amman (Jordan), Cairo (Egypt), Muscat (Oman), Nairobi (Kenya), Pretoria (South Africa), and Tehran (Iran).

Another 26 posts overseas will adopt the postal manual voting system, wherein the ballots will be mailed directly to the registered voter, who will then mail it back to the polling center after filling it up. These are in: Brasilia (Brazil), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Mexico, Santiago (Chile), Ankara (Turkey), Athens (Greece), Berlin (Germany), Bern (Switzerland), Brussels (Belgium), Budapest (Hungary), Geneva (Switzerland), Holy See (Vatican), Moscow, Oslo (Norway), Paris, Prague (Czech Republic), The Hague (The Netherlands), Vienna (Austria), Warsaw (Poland), Beijing, Canberra (Australia), Hanoi (Vietnam), Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), Sydney, Wellington (New Zealand), and Yangon (Myanmar).

There will be no elections to be conducted in Baghdad (Iraq), Damascus (Syria), and Tripoli (Libya) due to prevailing conflicts in the said areas.
Instead, absentee voters registered in the said areas will be allowed to cast their ballots in adjacent Philippine posts. — APG, GMA News

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