Heavy turnout in polls seen
AT least an eighty-five percent turnout from its 1,621,959 registered voters in the province is expected troop to the polls in Pangasinan.
Provincial Elections Supervisor Reddy Balarbar said based on the 83% turnout in the 2007 election in, he is expecting the percentage to go higher this year because it is both a national and local elections.
In the province’s 44 towns and four cities, there are 2,334 clustered precincts, with one Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine for each in the first automated polls in the country.
Balarbar said all the PCOS machines, including the ballots, have already arrived.
However, the reconfigured compact flash cards have not been installed at presstime. The earlier batch was recalled to Manila for testing after several others were found defective.
The corrected CF cards were expected to arrive Saturday, after which the provincial election office was scheduled to do its test runs until today, Sunday.
Balarbar said once the CF cards arrive, he would rate their readiness in this election at nine, in a ratio of one to 10.
He also brushed aside as “wild speculations” that the May 10 polls will be postponed.
“How can it be postponed if all the PCOs machines, ballots and all the paraphernalia, including the personnel involved are now ready?” he said.
The clustered precincts are located in 1,184 voting centers, each of which will be manned by two policeman to ensure honest, orderly and peaceful elections.–LM
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