Philippine overseas absentee voting in UAE: All you need to know

Dubai - Filipinos abroad can elect 12 senators and a party-list representative in Congress for the upcoming midterm elections.

It's all systems go for the upcoming Philippine overseas absentee voting (OAV) in the UAE after the Philippine Consulate in Dubai successfully conducted the final testing and sealing (FTS) of the vote counting machines (VCM) on Saturday.
The month-long OAV will begin on Saturday, April 13 and will run until May 13 at the Philippine missions in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Filipinos abroad can elect 12 senators and a party-list representative in Congress for the upcoming midterm elections under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Consul-general Paul Raymund Cortes said Dubai has the biggest number of registered voters among all the Philippine diplomatic posts in the world. Data from the Commission on Elections - Office for Overseas Voting show that there are 1,822,173 registered overseas absentee voters. Dubai has around 209,000 voters while Abu Dhabi has around 109,000 registered Filipino voters.

In Dubai, Cortes said the mission has 11 clustered precincts at the consulate and the Philippine Overseas Labour Office. They will also deploy mobile voting precincts in areas where there are a large concentration of Filipino expats across Dubai and the northern emirates.
The consulate will announce when and where field voting will happen after getting approval from concerned authorities in the UAE, Cortes added.
For clean and transparent elections
Cortes told Khaleej Times that the testing and sealing of the vote counting machines were conducted "to prove to the public that the VCMs are properly calibrated to read the actual votes cast."
"We also made the testing open to the public to dispel any doubt as to the legitimacy of the exercise. We also checked that the SD (secure digital) cards and other election paraphernalia are intact and functioning well," he added.
Elections in the Philippines adopted electronic counting since the 2010 general elections.
Voters shade an oval preceding the candidate's name on a paper ballot which is registered with an optical mark recognition (OMR) machine.
The VCMs, which are synchronized with Philippine time (which is four hours ahead than the UAE), print a voting receipt and also count all the votes electronically to be transmitted to the board of canvassers.
During the overseas voting, Philippine foreign service personnel will serve as members of the Special Board of Canvassers (SBOC), Special Ballot Reception and Custody Group (SBRCG), Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEI), Canvas Consolidation System (CCS) operators, and VVCM operators.
In Dubai, there are a total of 57 consulate staff and volunteers who will perform the election tasks on top of their regular consular work, according to Cortes.
Under the election slogan, 'Let's Strengthen our Democracy. It's Our Right and Duty', the consulate will also intensify its awareness campaign to further encourage registered overseas Filipinos to exercise their right to suffrage, he added.
Cortes did not set a target for the voter turnout but he told Khaleej Times that he is expecting a "good turnaround" this year. In the Philippine national elections in 2016, when Duterte was elected president, 31 per cent or 37,972 out of 122,185 registered Filipino voters in Dubai cast their votes. That was a big leap from the 2013 midterm elections that saw a dismal 6.35 per cent or 3,545 of the 55,842 voters who cast their ballots.
Reminders
Before going to Philippine Consulate to vote, check your name if you are included in the certified list of voters in Dubai and the northern emirates as posted in the consulate website www.dubaipcg.dfa.gov.ph
Registered overseas voters who wish to cast their ballots are required to present their EmiratesID or passport or any valid ID for identification purposes.
Numbers
> April 13 - May 13 - overseas absentee voting for registered Filipino voters in the UAE
> To elect for 12 senatorial seats and 1 party-list representation in Congress
> Election timings: 8am to 9pm except on April 18 & 19 - when the election precincts are closed in observance of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday respectively
> Election timings on May 13 - 6am to 2pm (to synchronize with the 6pm closing of polls in the Philippines)
> 57 election staff at the Philippine Consulate in Dubai
> 11 vote counting machines (VCM); each VCM can accept and store up to 20,000 votes
> More than 209,000 registered voters in Dubai and northern emirates 
> Over 109,000 registered voters in Abu Dhabi
angel@khaleejtimes.com

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