Photo Slideshow

Scenes from the first hour of voting at Commonwealth Elementary School

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As early as 5 a.m., voters began looking for the designated classrooms for the precincts in which they were registered. There were sheets posted at the entrance of the Commonwealth Elementary School in Quezon City’s second district, the biggest voting center in the city. Then, they had to negotiate through a crowd to look for their sequence number on the voter’s list posted outside the classroom. A member of the Board of Election Inspectors distributes numbers outside to make sure queuing for entrance to the voting room is done orderly. While waiting for their turn, the voters are requested to gather in a holding room adjacent to the voting room for instructions on the voting process.

Scores of voters complained of the length of time they had to spend looking for their names. Many had sought assistance of volunteers from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) at the school ground’s covered court. Most of them could not find their names on the voter’s lists posted outside the precincts where they used to vote in previous elections. Elderly persons had a difficult time browsing through the list because of the small fonts that they could hardly read.