Comelec, Twitter partner to bring first-ever #TwitterElection

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Twitter have announced their partnership to enable more Filipino voters to get live access to political information, to interact with top election candidates and express their views about the election process via Tweets, Vines and Periscopes.

This partnership will empower the Philippines to have its own #TwitterElection this year, similar to the national elections in India and Indonesia in 2014.

To launch the partnership in Manila, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista and Rishi Jaitly, Twitter’s vice president of Media, Asia Pacific and Middle East, tweeted from the commission’s official Twitter account @COMELEC.

Bautista said, “Our first-ever partnership with Twitter will enhance our agency’s ability to leverage the power of social media to improve the democratic process for all our citizens in the Philippines and around the world. We look forward to working with Twitter to make the presidential debates more accessible to millions of Filipinos and, on a larger scale, to increase voter participation and political transparency throughout the presidential election this year.”

Jaitly said, “Being on Twitter is like having a front row seat to the presidential election, it’s the best place to go to get live updates of political campaigns and publicly connect with candidates, while giving every Filipino a voice to be heard during the election. We’re proud to partner with Comelec to make this the first truly Twitter election for Filipinos and enable more people power to discuss, debate and choose the next government of the Philippines.”