The rains did not come and I got my daughter C2 to tag along for company (with the promise of coffee at the nearby coffee shop afterwards) so off to the school we went to get a feel of the canvassing. She was not yet qualified to vote but I wanted her to experience a part of the entire electoral process.
We got to the school just as the different precincts were setting up for canvassing. By this time, the crowds had thinned out and I think we were one of the few “usiseras” inside (all the others were wearing IDs and tags identifying them as poll watchers of this or that party).
So, we just walked around and observed. I was happy to find some friends at our precinct area (they were PPRCV volunteers). C2 was excited to see how the counting was progressing. A COMELEC person would be holding out a ballot in view of the poll watchers while calling out the names slowly; another person would be putting sticks beside the corresponding names.
Some observations (very sketchy really, since we did not stay for the entire canvassing):
– Alan Cayetano may have several stray votes since we encountered ballots that just had “Cayetano” written on them. I understand that while COMELEC had disqualified Joselito Cayetano (how his nickname became PETER beats me!), they also ruled that he had 5 days to appeal and therefore votes for “Cayetano” would be considered stray. Couldn’t they have ruled a lot earlier so that the 5-day appeal would end prior to elections?
– there were so many blank slots for party-list. I guess more effort should be made to get voters educated on the purpose of party-lists, what they can do in Congress, and what sectors can be represented. I heard someone comment during canvassing that the party-list’s location on the ballot was too far down that it could easily be missed. Could that be another reason for the many blank votes too?
I did not take that many pictures this time (to be honest, we were feeling so hot and were looking for respite at the air-conditioned coffee shop around the corner) but here are some of what I took:
The gym was cut in half by a blue wall of dividers. Both sides of the gym were filled with rows of precincts with the dividers being used for COMELEC’s tally sheets.
Everyone focused intensely on the job at hand, a good sign at least in this polling place. Even our parish priest was hanging around to check the goings-on.
I am not sure exactly what time canvassing ended in this place but at around 8:30 PM, my PPCRV friend told me that canvassing was FAR FROM OVER!