178,000 seniors, PWDs, pregnant women voted early in Eastern Visayas

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SPECIAL WINDOW. Elderly citizens wait for their turn to vote at the Sta. Margarita I Central School in Sta. Margarita, Samar on Monday (May 12, 2026). (PNA photo by Roel Amazona)

TACLOBAN CITY — At least 177,000 senior citizens, pregnant women, persons with disabilities, and persons who assisted them availed of early voting in Eastern Visayas during the midterm elections on Monday.

Commission on Elections assistant regional director Maria Corazon Montallana said they are happy with the turnout, especially because this was the first time these groups were allowed to cast their ballots early.

“All our precincts welcomed early voters within 15 minutes after their opening. We have been monitoring the early voting since this is the first time that we implemented the early voting hours,” she told reporters.

Of the 177,926 individuals who cast their votes from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., 127,935 were senior citizens, 13,638 were persons with disabilities, 4,703 were pregnant women, and 31,650 were persons who helped them vote.

Montallano does not yet have specific information on how many of these voters came from the region’s six provinces and seven cities.

Comelec data show about over three million (3,259,554) registered voters from the region for the midterm polls.

Meanwhile, the regional Comelec office disclosed that automated counting machines (ACMs) rejecting ballots was one of the most frequent complaints by electoral board members to their operations center as of noontime Monday.

“The most common problem involved sensitive scanners that frequently rejected ballots,” the regional office said in a statement

“I think this issue was observed since the scanner is very sensitive to wet ink. Because of this, we allowed the use of ordinary black pens for shading,” the official added.

One of those who experienced the glitch was House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

The speaker experienced three failed attempts to feed his ballot into the ACM when he voted at about 1 p.m. at the V&G de la Cruz Memorial School in Tacloban City.

A technical staff member had to clean up the scanner until the ballot was accepted./apl