Early birds struggle to beat voting ‘threshold’

QUEZON City – On prior instances, these who are inclined to vote early on Election Day have been finding a smoother stream in casting their votes.

This year’s polls are a different a single.

With a large amount of components that kicked in, at minimum some of the “early birds” discovered on their own possessing to endure prolonged lines and hours of waiting around ahead of obtaining their switch to vote.

One particular major aspect driving this was a simply call of encouragement from some presidential camps to vote early presumably so that their votes would depend without the need of any hitch.

Although some, especially these inside my circles of good friends who also acknowledged the obstacle, acquired to vote just as the precincts opened at 6 a.m. Monday, a superior chunk of the voters who answered the “challenge” even now missed the supposed 10 a.m. “cut-off” for the early fowl votes.

Although now residing in Los Baños, exactly where I expended my higher education days at the College of the Philippines campus there, I have my childhood property here as my voting residence.

So I took a two-and-a-50 %-hour ride from Los Baños to the GSIS Village Multi-Purpose Corridor on Barangay Bahay Toro in Quezon Town to vote.

If this was either of the previous two occasions I got to vote on the national level, I would have been done in at most one particular hour, ready time provided.

But the unthinkable happened.

Experience assured despite arriving at 9 a.m. at the polling location, I imagined I would nonetheless make it “in time” for the 10 a.m. “early deadline”.

Instead, I observed myself in a extended queue with some of my fellow voters who were also searching to get their votes early on.

Owing to the coronavirus sickness 2019 pandemic, limitations have been set within the venue, which predominantly functions as a basketball court docket for the village and the barangay, especially restricting the variety of voters permitted per voting cluster.

I missed the 10 a.m. early vote threshold as the line only moved a tiny in the one-hour timeframe.

What further hampered the proceedings was that the voting in 1 polling cluster experienced to be postponed for a bit evidently to some concerns pertaining to a voting counting machine.

Finally, I acquired to vote, but it was previously earlier midday, a shade around two hours earlier the problem deadline.

Some speculate that because I voted further than 10 a.m., my vote could now be susceptible to opportunity hiccups. I just hope my vote will be counted as is. (PNA)