Mindanaotoday.com | Oro posts 85% voter turnout
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN de Oro, the country’s 13th vote-rich city, recorded an 85.22-percent turnout of voters in the May 9 national and local elections, a Commission on Elections (Comelec) official said.
“We’re very glad we were able to finish at a relatively faster pace,” said Comelec City Election Officer Rowell Valledor, whose turf covers 532 clustered precincts in 60 voting centers.
Valledor said 317,273 out of 372,293 registered voters actually voted, aside from a 100-percent turnout in local absentee voting involving military and police personnel.
This, he said, amid the minimum public health standards that must be observed and queuing in search for names in posted voter’s list and in the actual voting which started 6 a.m.
But he admitted, in an interview by reporters at the City Council session hall, that there were cases of paper jams on vote-counting machines, but these were resolved by technical experts.
“Everything went smoothly, all parties accepted the results,” said Valledor, who proclaimed the 20 winners about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 10 — within 24 hours after the balloting ended 7 p.m. of Oct. 9.
Twenty elective posts were contested in the city: a representative each congressional district, mayoral, vice-mayoral, and eight City Council seats each for first and second congressional district.
With Valledor as chairperson of the Board of Canvassers were co-chairperson City Prosecutor Charisse Bitoon, and member-secretary Schools Division Superintendent Cherry Mae Limbaco-Reyes.
Comelec-10 Regional Election Director Francisco Pobe Jr., who earlier disclosed a perfect LAV turnout, said they are still collating Northern Mindanao’s regional voting turnout.
Nationwide, the Commission has been seeing over 80-percent balloting outcome out of over 67-million registered electors, a trend which may surpass the 2016’s 81.95 percent.