Technical glitches and election-related violence (ERV) failed to dampen the enthusiasm of over 46.3 million voters to participate in the 2019 midterm elections last week.
Based from its initial report as of Monday, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported 74.89 percent of the 61,843,728 registered voters nationwide were able to cast their votes.
This could still increase since it has yet to include the canvassed votes from the province of Isabela, Japan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United States and Nigeria.
A total of 1,683,938 voters are registered in the five areas.
Comelec Spokesman James B. Jimenez said they are confident of meeting their voter turnout rate (VTR), or the ratio of those who voted and those who are registered voters for the 2019 polls.
“We are on track to meet the 75- percent projected [VTR] we said earlier,” Jimenez told reporters in a news conference.
He said this already above the international average for VTRs, which is only around at 40 percent.
The poll official noted VTRs rarely reach 100 percent since some voters would opt not to vote by choice.
Jimenez attributed the high vote turnout to colorful candidates, engaged electorate, and more transparency for the Comelec in the conduct of its operations.
“There are so many criticism against the Comelec, but that is because it has been transparent. If it was not, what will people complain about,” Jimenez said.
The said factors also helped boost voter participation in the local absentee voting (LAV) for government officials and personnel, including police and soldiers, as well as the media.
The VTR for LAV was at 77.08 percent.
These improvements, however, still did little to perk up VTR for the overseas absentee voting, which was only at 20.66 percent.
Some poll watchdogs have expressed concern that the reported increase in the number of defective vote-counting machines, Secure Digital cards and Voter Registration Verification System has discouraged many people from participating in the 2019 polls.