Doha: The last day of overseas voting will be today until 2pm at the Philippine Embassy.
The Philippine Embassy in Qatar said that immediately after the closure of the polling at 2pm, they will start counting the votes.
Today also marks the Election Day in the Philippines. The month-long overseas voting started on April 10 and the embassy said that the overseas absentee voting in Qatar resulted to a strong turnout. Currently, there are three polling precincts to serve over 40,000 registered voters in Qatar.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) said overseas voters recorded a 27.8 percent turnout or 472,559 as of May 7 compared to 2019 midterm elections which was only at 18 percent. In the Middle East and African Region, 181,399 out of 786,997 have voted.
In total, there are 472,559 people voted, out of 1,697,215 registered overseas Filipino voters in Asia Pacific, European, Middle East and African and North and Latin American regions all combined.
First time overseas voters Jalaney Ross and Lily told The Peninsula that the voting was fast and smooth. “Overall it took me seven minutes to complete the whole voting process,” said Jalaney.
“For me, since I came at noon, the queuing was quite long and I spent 20 minutes waiting to vote. Since I have a list who to vote, after five minutes, I have finished shading my preferred candidates,” said Lily.
Prior to voting, a voter should present his passport or Qatar ID for identification, he will then sign next to his name on the voters list document. After this, a support staff will give a brief over the ballot to examine that it has no markings. This is placed inside a Comelec ballot secrecy folder. Do not accept if the ballot has tears, marks or shades. A Comelec marking pen can only be used to mark the ballot which will be given to the voter.
Next step is to fill up the ballot, Comelec reminded voters to fully shade the oval to the left of the candidate’s name to make sure it is counted by the vote counting machine and do not make any other mark on the ballot. If an individual votes for more candidates than the number indicated for the position, this can invalidate his vote. Moreover, he can undervote or abstain from choosing the maximum number of candidates.
After filling the ballot, the voter should keep it inside the ballot secrecy folder, bring it to the vote-counting machine and insert it to the machine. Wait for the machine to process the ballot where it will print a voting receipt to review.
After checking the receipt if it correctly reflects who you voted for, drop it in the designated box by folding it twice so to not show who you voted for. If the receipt does not match who you voted for, approach a staff to file a complaint which they will put on record.
