Comelec: 18,000 detainees to vote in barangay, SK polls

At least 18,000 detainees nationwide are expected to cast their votes during the October 25 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections, data from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) showed. Data from the poll body indicated that a total of 18,391 inmates will be allowed to vote inside jails with special polling places. Bulk of the 18,391 detainee voters are from the National Capital Region (NCR), where there are 4,696 qualified voters in 17 jails. The Quezon City Jail has the most number of inmates qualified to vote during Monday's elections with 800. Aside from NCR, the region with the biggest number of detainee voters is Region IV-A with 4,066 in 16 jails. The Antipolo City Jail has the most number of qualified inmates with 624. During the May 2010 polls, there were a total of 23,657 detainees qualified to vote. It could not yet be ascertained, however, how many were able to actually cast their votes. According to Comelec Resolution 9070 promulgated October 20, detainee voting may be availed of by any registered detainee whose registration record has not been deactivated or cancelled. It defined a detainee as any person "confined in jail, formally charged for any crime/s and awaiting/undergoing trial" or "serving a sentence of imprisonment for less than one year (except for the crimes involving disloyalty and crimes against national security); or "whose convition of a crime involving disloyalty to the duly constituted govenment such as rebellion, sedition, violation or the firearms laws or any crime against national security or for any other crime is on appeal." It said that detainees can either vote escorted to their respective precincts or in special polling places established for every detention facility with at least 100 detainee voters. The resolution, however, said that escorted voting still requires an order from the court. It likewise said special polling places inside jails must to be spacious enough to accommodate at least 20 detainee voters voting simultanerously. The resolution said that the date and time of detainee voting shall also take place on October 25. For jails provided with special polling places, voting shall start at 7 a.m. and must be finished at 12 noon to give sufficient time to bring the filled-up ballots to the detainees' respective precincts before they close at 3 p.m. on election day. For detainees voting in regular precincts, voting hours will start at 7 a.m. and will end at 3 p.m. They shall given priority when they reach their polling places, the resolution said. The committee on detainee voting is headed by Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento. There are 52,717,060 registered voters in 162,492 clustered precincts for both the Barangay and SK levels. There are 50,257,540 registered voters for the Barangay elections while there are 2,459,520 registered voters for the SK polls.— RSJ, GMANews.TV