PH Consulate General in Los Angeles Begins Month-long Overseas Voting for 2019 PH Elections

Consul General Adelio Angelito Cruz and two other registered voters turn in their accomplished ballots to a Special Ballot Reception Custody Group member. (Los Angeles PCG photo)

LOS ANGELES 30 April 2019 — The Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles started receiving accomplished ballots on 13 April 2019.

Consul General to Los Angeles Adelio Angelito Cruz spearheaded the ceremonial opening of the the conduct of the 2019 Senatorial and Party List Elections by turning in his ballot to a member of the Special Ballot Reception Custody Group (SBRCG). Two other registered voters also submitted their ballots.

Pursuant to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) rules, SBRCG members are tasked to assess the quality of submitted ballots before they forward them to the Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEIs) who eventually feed the ballots to the Vote Counting Machine (VCM).

The Consulate General is mandated to facilitate postal voting, which means that ballots are sent to the registered voters. Each packet contains one official ballot, a return envelope, a paper seal and an instruction manual. To ensure that ballots will be counted by the machine, registered voters are encouraged to carefully read through and follow the instructions sent to them.

Voters should send back or personally submit their filled up ballots to the Consulate on or before 13 May 2019. The Consulate will accept ballots even during holidays, according to a new COMELEC resolution.

In support of the government’s extensive campaign to encourage the registered voters under the Consulate General’s jurisdiction to exercise their right to vote, it actively posts on its website and Facebook account relevant information on voting.  The Consulate General also entertains media who wish to cover the ballot feeding that is scheduled every Monday and Thursday per COMELEC instructions. The first batch of ballot feeding was conducted on 15 April 2019.

The Consulate General has 52,762 registered voters according to the COMELEC's Certified List of Overseas Voters (CLOV), making it the second highest number of voters among the Philippine diplomatic missions in the United States. END

Consulate General SBEI Chair Vice Consul Dyan Kristine Miranda-Pastrana ensures that the Initialization Report generates zero votes after her team successfully set the “Open Voting” of the machine. (Los Angeles PCG photo)

For more information, visit www.philippineconsulatela.org or https://www.facebook.com/PHLinLA/.