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Special
Election in Ilocos Sur held
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from
NAMFREL Election Monitor Vol.2, No.13
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On May 28, 2011, the Commission on
Elections held a special election in the province of Ilocos Sur. The
election was for the position vacated by former Rep. Ronald Singson
after he resigned to serve his sentence of 18-month imprisonment for
drug possession in Hong Kong. Ronald’s younger brother, Ryan, won
the elections as the 1st district’s representative to the House of
Representatives with 71,995 votes, defeating his rival Atty.
Bertrand Baterina who garnered 30,445 votes. Singson was proclaimed
as the official winner by the COMELEC in the morning of May 29,
2011.
NAMFREL Ilocos Sur chapter chairperson Sr. Lilian Carranza headed
the volunteers who were deployed to monitor the polls. Volunteers
were present in all the ten municipalities in the 1st District, and
in Vigan City. They reported that the special election was generally
peaceful, but was characterized by rampant vote-buying. This
activity involved some barangay officials who were allegedly paid to
influence their constituents and to help in distributing cash
incentives to heads of households in their barangay to vote for a
certain candidate.
Field volunteers informed that of the 161, 975 registered voters,
only 100, 269, or around 61.9% of voters turned out to vote.
According to their analysis, this could be attributed partially to
the inclement weather, especially in the morning of election day,
but towards the afternoon, they noted an increase in the number of
voters who cast their ballots. |
Despite challenges, NAMFREL Ilocos
Sur was able to obtain permission from the Provincial
Election Supervisor to secure a copy of the Election Returns
(ERs). Volunteers were able to collect 571 Election Results
(ERs) from the 577 clustered precincts in all the ten towns
and one city in the 1st district, or 98.96%. After the ERs
were collected, Sr. Lilian led the chapter to come up with
an unofficial tally of the results per city/ municipality.
Between 600 and 700 volunteers were mobilized on election
day. Volunteers were fielded to monitor the general conduct
of the elections, and to collect the seventh copy of the ER
in all the towns and city in the 1st district of Ilocos Sur. |
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COMELEC chairman Sixto Brillantes, Jr. and
Commissioner Elias Yusoph went to the province to personally oversee
the conduct of the special elections. It was reported that the poll
body allotted Php 18.4 million, or about Php 114 per registered
voter, to cover operational expenses during the elections.
Read Namfrel's election day statement here:
http://bit.ly/j6ZXZc
Read Namfrel's parallel count tally here:
http://bit.ly/lLcMNi |
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