• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Local Absentee Voting (LAV) starts on April 28, with 1,880 voters, mostly police and military personnel, availing it, Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Ian Lee Ananoria disclosed on Friday.
The voters will be selecting 12 senators and one party-list organization using automated counting machines (ACMs), according to the Commission on Elections.
The LAV will run from April 28 to 30, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Comelec has approved 57,689 LAV voters all over the country, which include 29,030 AFP personnel, 23,448 PNP personnel, 4,206 government employees, and 1,005 members of the media.
In a forum organized by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), Ananoria said online voting for Overseas Filipino Workers also started last week.
Indeed, the election has already started, he noted.
Ananoria also announced the complete delivery of ACMs in Negros Occidental, which are being stored in a Comelec hub and secured by the police.
He further said that they will start sending the 2,048 ACMs to the different Election Offices in Negros Occidental on April 28 and 29, with the final testing and sealing slated for May 7.
A total of 151 ACMs have been allotted as contingency units in case any counting machines break down.
Ananoria also said that they established a technical hub in the province for the repair of defective machines and its accessories.
The official ballots will arrive on May 1 and 2, he added.
Negros Occidental has a total of 2,009,564 registered voters, making it the sixth most vote-rich province in the country, according to Ananoria.*
