The mock polls held Saturday morning in two schools here were peaceful and almost perfect except for slight delays, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported.
Atty. Danilo Cullo, acting Comelec officer in the city’s first district, said the mock polls were originally planned to run from 8 to 10 a.m., but poll officials replaced a number of the randomly selected voters in two designated clustered precincts due to non-appearance.
“Although there were some delays, naging maayos, peaceful at successful naman ang ating mock elections,” Cullo said.
He said nine out of 50 selected voters did not appear in Generoso Elementary School, Barangay Bago Aplaya in the city’s first district, while 17 out of 50 did not show up in Alejandra Navarro Elementary School in Barangay Likanan, Lasang in the second district.
Davao City’s second district election officer lawyer John Cubero, who oversaw operations in Lasang, said the voters were notified by the barangay officials, but some were unable to appear due to various reasons.
Cubero said voters who are residents of the area replaced the 17 voters who were absent.
However, in Barangay Bago Aplaya, Cullo decided to replace the nine absent voters with five Comelec members or Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs), two from the civil society groups, and two journalists.
Cullo said in Bago Aplaya, one ballot was rejected as the voter checked the space provided instead of shading it.
“The voters were given the instruction to shade the circles with the pentel pens but, instead nilagyan ng check so ni-reject ng PCOS (precinct count optical scanner) machine kasi hindi mabasa,” Cullo said.
Transmission of election returns was finished just two hours after the voting period ended.
On the other hand, Task Force Davao chief Col. Oscar Lactao and Davao City Police Office director Senior Superintendent Rene Aspera and their men assisted the Comelec officials in maintaining peace and order during the activity.
Both officials said the procedure was generally peaceful.
“We’re very positive it’s good, it went very peaceful this time. This mock election was a success,” Lactao said.
Comelec Regional Director Remlane Tambuang said the clustered precinct in Lasang stopped receiving ballots at 10:10 a.m. and the transmission of data was finished before 11 a.m., while the precinct in Bago Aplaya closed at around 10:30 a.m. while the transmission ended past 11 a.m.
Tambuang said after a clustered precinct closed, the data or election results in that area were transmitted to the National Comelec office in Manila, the Municipal/City Board of Canvassers, and Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP). PNA
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