Comelec extends voting time allotted for BEI members

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has extended the time allotted for teachers who are serving as Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) to cast their votes on election day.

From 20 minutes, the BEIs now have 30 minutes to leave their posts and vote on May 10, according to Comelec’s amended Resolution No. 8786.

The Comelec noted that BEIs should leave their posts only “when the voting in their respective places of assignments is light and their absence shall not be for more than 30 minutes.”

“For this purpose, they shall schedule their voting so that only one member of the Board of Election Inspectors shall leave at any one time,” the Comelec said in its recently-promulgated resolution.

The Department of Education had protested the previous 20-minute time allotment, saying this is not enough for BEIs to cast their votes, especially since many of them might not be registered in their assigned poll precincts.

Under the amended resolution, BEIs may avail of local absentee voting if they are registered in polling precincts “other than where they are assigned” on election day. This means that the BEIs may vote in other voting centers within the same district.

Meanwhile, the National Movement for Free Elections-Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-National Secretariat for Social Action (NAMFREL-CBCP-NASSA) urged the Comelec to issue guidelines on what BEIs should do in case the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines break down on election day.

In a statement, NAMFREL-CBCP-NASSA said it was “dangerous and reckless for the Comelec to assume it can achieve a 100-precent automated election” even without putting such guidelines in the General Instructions (GIs) for BEIs.

The GIs contain the mechanics of voting, counting and canvassing and what BEIs should do when they face various situations like ballot shortage.

They said that while the Comelec is confident that the automated polls would be successful, it should not discount the “many factors (that may) impinge on the automation process” like power, telecommunications, transportation and reliability of outsourced and contacted services.