CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews / 23 April) – As part of the health protocols against COVID-19, only 10 voters will be allowed inside every precinct on May 9 to ensure social distancing, lawyer Aleli Abamonga Dayo, Misamis Oriental director of the Commission on Elections, said.
Dayo said medical front liners will be deployed to take temperature checks and other basic monitoring against COVID-19 on election day.
Voters suspected to be infected would still be allowed to vote but the casting of ballots would be in “special rooms,” she said.
She said voters are not required to present vaccination cards or QR codes at the polling precinct.
“A qualified voter is already equivalent to an Authorized Person Outside Residence or APOR status,” she told some 40 journalists attending the workshop “Covering the May 9 elections,” organized by the Cagayan de Oro Press Club in partnership with the Hanns Seidel Foundation, a non-stock, non-profit, non-governmental organization in Germany.
Rhona Canoy, anti-election fraud activist, said she fears the May 9 elections would be fraught with anomalies in the voting process and heated scuffles among supporters of politicians.
Canoy flagged disinformation, trolls and paid radio commentators as worrying signs that could disrupt the election process.
“Politicians have hired and organized their own media teams much to the detriment of the mainstream media,” she noted. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)