Voting in Jeddah postponed anew

MANILA, Philippines – Absentee voting for Filipinos in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has been postponed for a second time due to delays in the delivery of ballot boxes.

Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr said on Wednesday, April 17, said the post is still resolving problems with the customs.

“The delivery of ballot boxes didn’t make it on time because of customs and delivery problems. That’s because of its movement from one area to another,” Brillantes said.

Voting in the said post will begin as soon as the ballot boxes reach there.

The month-long voting of overseas Filipinos for this year’s midterm elections started Saturday, April 13 — except in Riyadh and Jeddah, due to the delay in release of ballot boxes from the customs.

Voting for these two posts where rescheduled to April 16, but only Riyadh was able to start voting on the said date.

Riyadh and Jeddah are among the overseas post with the most number of Filipino voters. Almost 40% of the OAVs are concentrated in the Middle East, the region that has some of the most vote-rich posts.

(READ: Where the overseas voters are)



They are also among the & posts that will implement automated voting this year. Automated voting will also will implemented in Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi.

(READ: New method for overseas voting introduced)

With the prolonged delayed of voting in Jeddah, Brillantes said they’re considering adjusting the voting time of registered overseas voters.

“We have to recover it by adding another hour or another two hours [every day],” he said.

According to Comelec’ Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting (COAV), there are 975,263 Filipinos outside the country who are eligible to vote. They include the 237,504 who were initially delisted by the poll body in December after they failed to vote for two consecutive elections but have since been reinstated. – Rappler.com