More than 79,000 fail to vote due to hostilities

More than 79,000 voters failed to vote on election day due to wrong shipping of ballots and armed hostilities in 12 municipalities in the Visayas and Mindanao, the Commission on Elections said Friday. A total of 79,920 voters from 203 clustered precincts in the country were affected by failure of elections in some towns in Iloilo, Samar, Sarangani, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), a Comelec record showed. Earlier, failure of elections has been recommended in 11 municipalities in the country although the poll body has yet to make official declarations and reschedule voting in these areas. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the poll body still has to hear these recommendations to be able to identify the dates when to hold elections in the affected areas. “It is already being heard and we have already scheduled hearings in the coming days," he said in an interview with reporters on Friday. Among the areas where total failure of elections has been recommended include Guimbal town in Iloilo and Pagsanghan town in Samar, where ballots were “inadvertently switched." A clustered precinct in Glan town in Sarangani also received wrong ballots causing failure of elections in the area, the Comelec said. In Sultan Dumalondong, Lumba Bayabao, Masiu and Tubaran towns in Basilan, polls did not push through because members of the board of election inspectors did not report for duty on election. Two towns in Lanao del Sur — Marogong and Bayang — and Al Barka and Maluso towns in Basilan likewise failed to hold polls because of armed hostilities, the poll body said. The Omnibus Election Code defines failure of elections as a situation in which “the election in any polling place has not been held on the date fixed, or had been suspended before the hour fixed by law." The same provision also said that the suspension may also occur “after the voting and during the preparation and the transmission of the election returns." - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV