Eastern Visayas: At least 177,926 senior citizens, pregnant women, persons with disabilities, and their assistors availed of early voting in Eastern Visayas during the midterm elections on Monday. Commission on Elections assistant regional director Maria Corazon Montallana expressed satisfaction with the turnout, highlighting that this was the first time these groups were allowed to cast their ballots early.

According to Philippines News Agency, all precincts began accommodating early voters within 15 minutes of opening, with early voting hours implemented from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. Of the 177,926 individuals who participated, 127,935 were senior citizens, 13,638 were persons with disabilities, 4,703 were pregnant women, and 31,650 were assistors. Montallana noted that she did not have specific data on the distribution of these voters across the region’s six provinces and seven cities. The Comelec data indicates that there are approximately 3,259,554 registered voters in the region for the midterm polls.

Meanwhile, the regional Comelec office reported that one of the most common complaints from electoral board members involved automated counting machines (ACMs) rejecting ballots. This issue was primarily due to sensitive scanners that frequently rejected ballots. The regional office stated that the scanners were very sensitive to wet ink, leading to the allowance of ordinary black pens for shading ballots.

House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez was among those who encountered this issue, experiencing three failed attempts to feed his ballot into the ACM when he voted at about 1 p.m. at the V and G de la Cruz Memorial School in Tacloban City. A technical staff member had to clean the scanner before the ballot was successfully accepted.