Registered voters now have different options to determine their assigned voting precincts during the May 12 elections, a Commission on Elections official said Wednesday.
Lawyer Lionel Marco Castillano, Comelec-Negros Island Region director, told the media that with the activation of the online precinct finder, voters have better chances of easily locating their assigned polling centers ahead of the midterm polls.
“This (online precinct finder) is one of the efforts of the Comelec so that the people will directly know their voting center and precinct number,” Castillano said.
The poll body has made the online precinct finder available to the public earlier than usual this time, he added.
The Department of Information & Communications Technology is now hosting the Comelec’s website and online precinct finder after these were hacked and compromised sometime in 2016, Castillano said.
He noted that one of the usual problems on election day is people having “a hard time finding their precincts but Comelec has different stages” to determine a voter’s precinct number.
Voters’ ways of determining their poll precinct include visiting the Comelec offices in the town or city where they are registered or through the Voter’s Information Sheet which is currently being distributed house-to-house by people hired by the poll body.
The VIS contains not just the personal information of a voter, including a person’s assigned precinct number, but also the names of candidates, steps on how to vote, and even a sample ballot, Castillano said.
Other options also include hard copies of the registered voters’ lists, which can be obtained at assistance desks with the help of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting on election day.
At the precinct level, a computerized voters’ list with their pictures would be posted, Castillano said. (Judy F. Partlow)
