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MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/ 14 May)— “Generally, the elections in the precincts of Malaybalay fared well,” a group of four election monitors from the US Embassy of Manila said.
Wossie Mazengia, US Embassy deputy press attaché and one of the election monitors who visited 15 out of 157 precincts in the city, said they admired the way people coped with the first ever automated elections. “We saw people line up in an orderly manner, we saw many who participated in the elections,” she said.
Jun Manipon, one of the monitors, said they also saw the “chaos” during the first hours of the election day. “But it’s just normal, this is the first automated election and you can’t blame people in getting anxious.” He also added that the queue management, though, should be improved next time.
“And we admire that there is more than 70 percent of the registered voters who actually voted here,” added Mazengia in an interview after their last precinct visit at the Airport Village Elementary School.
The Comelec said that there was a 73.39 percent voters’ turn-out in Malaybalay City, or 61,463 who actually voted out of 83, 752 registered voters. (April Rose Torion / MindaNews)