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Comelec exec: Foreign poll officials ‘blown away’ by ‘Bilog na Hugis Itlog’


Even foreign poll officials have caught the “Bilog na Hugis Itlog" dance craze. Election Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said Friday that GMA Network’s “Bilog Na Hugis Itlog" voter education campaign during the May 2010 elections drew positive comments among foreign election officials he met with in the United States last week. “They [foreign poll officials] said we took voter education to another level when they saw the video.... They really liked it," he said in an interview with GMA News on Friday. Larrazabal, who went to the US last week to observe its midterm elections, said some officials from 10 countries even asked for copies of the “Bilog Na Hugis Itlog" music video featuring the Sexbomb Dancers. “This shows that a successful election rests with everybody taking part in involving themselves in the process. They were blown away by the video," he said. GMA Network launched the “Bilog Na Hugis Itlog" (literally, “egg-shaped circle") voter education campaign last year, in preparation for the country’s first-ever national automated polls held last May 10. The campaign was an effort to familiarize the Filipino electorate with the new automated system, which required voters to indicate their chosen candidates with darkened ovals on the ballot instead of writing down the candidates' names as in the old manual system. Despite various glitches that were observed in the vote-counting machines days before the national elections, poll officials have considered the May elections as a success, even branding it as a “model" for successful automated polls around the world.—Andreo C. Calonzo/JV, GMANews.TV

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