Here are a few things every voter—new voters especially—need to know.
First, voting hours are from six in the morning to six in the evening. This 12-hour window is intended to minimize congestion in the polling places since voters won’t have to crowd in during peak voting hours—typically early in the day and again in the early afternoon. This adjustment from the old voting hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. was also considered necessary because each polling precinct will be expected to process a maximum of a thousand voters each. Incidentally, there will be 61 million registered voters on election day, with a projected turnout of around 75 percent.
Second, in order to vote, voters must first be positively identified by the Boards of Election Inspectors—the three-man committee running the polling place. For most of the country, this identification process will hinge on the Election Day Computerized Voters List, which is a list of all the voters who are eligible to cast their ballots at a particular polling precinct. Yes, this means that each of the 35,000 or so polling precincts will have a unique EDCVL.
In certain pilot areas, however, namely: Manila, Quezon City, Cavite, Pangasinan, Cebu, Negros Occidental, Davao del Sur and Zamboanga del Sur—the EDCVLs will basically play backup to new tech being rolled out by the Commission on Elections, the Voter Registration Verification Machines, or VRVMs. These devices will identify eligible voters through a live fingerprint scan.
Third, once the voter has been identified, they will be handed a ballot, a marking pen and a ballot- secrecy folder. The ballot will contain the names of the candidates, arranged by elective position. In other words, under the category of Senator, voters will be able to find the names of the 62 official candidates for that position. There will be nine categories: Senator, Party-List Representative, Member of the House of Representatives, Governor, Vice Governor, Member of the Sangguniang Panglalawigan, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Member of the Sangguniang Panglunsod. For all ballots nationwide, there will be 62 candidates for senator and 134 party-list organizations. For all the rest of the positions, the names and number of candidates will vary depending on the municipality or city for which the ballot is intended. Yes, the ballots for every city or municipality will be unique.
Next to each candidate (or party-list organization) name will be a small oval. This is the voting oval. In order to register a vote for the candidate whose name appears next to it, the voter must darken the space within the oval, exclusively using the marking pen provided by the BEI, and using the ballot-secrecy folder to shield the ballot from prying eyes. To ensure that the vote is read correctly, the Comelec recommends that the voter aim for 100-percent shading of the space, although the vote-counting machines (VCMs) will consider a 25-percent shaded oval a valid vote. Since, practically speaking, the voter will have no way of determining for sure that they have met the 25- percent threshold, shading in more than that—100 percent in fact—is strongly recommended.
As a critically important aside, voters have to remember not to overvote. Each of the nine categories of positions appearing on the ballot will carry an indication of how many slots are available for each. Thus, 12 for Senator, one for Member of the House of Representatives, and so on. Overvoting happens when more than this number of slots have been shaded in—13 votes for Senator for instance, or two votes for Member of the House of Representatives. Overvoted positions will be considered stray and will be recorded, but will not be included in the final tally.
Fourth, after filling out the ballot, the voter should slowly insert the ballot into the VCM. Since there is only one way to actually do this, this procedure should be a no-brainer. Once the ballot has been accepted by the VCM, the machine will print out a report of who the voter voted for. People have taken to calling this report a “receipt” and, in a way, I guess that’s what it is. But unlike a real receipt, the voter doesn’t get to take this one home. Instead, the printout is supposed to be dropped into the designated box for it, which would be located next to the VCM.
Fifth, once the voter has completed this voting process, a drop of indelible ink will be applied to the nail of their right forefinger. And with that badge of honor, the voting process for that voter will have come to a close. The voter is then expected to leave immediately.
What I’ve just described is, of course, how things would go if there were no hiccups or problems along the way. Needless to say, a number of things can complicate the process —like the voter not showing up in the BEI’s lists, or the ballot being rejected by the VCM, and so on. Some voters might show up and be unable to fill out the ballots independently due to some condition or disability. We’ll deal with those exceptions in the next column. But for now, if you want to get a firsthand look at how the voting process actually works, you should know that the Comelec is conducting voter education-slash-voter experience seminars for the public. You can go to one of those, or you can request a seminar for your school or organization by sending a request to talktocomelec@gmail.com.