Question & AnswerQ&A (Republic Act No. 599)
The unit of territory for the purpose of voting is the election precinct, and every municipality or municipal district shall have at least one.
The Commission on Elections fixes the limits of all election precincts ninety days before the day of the election.
No election precinct shall have more than two hundred voters.
An island or group of islands having one hundred and fifty or more voters shall constitute a precinct.
Each polling place shall be a ground floor hall of sufficient size to accommodate forty voters outside the guard rail, located as centrally as possible with respect to voters' residences. It may be located in the poblacion upon petition, agreement of political parties, or Commission resolution, and a public building is preferred.
Each election precinct has a board composed of a chairman, two inspectors, and a poll clerk.
One inspector and substitute are proposed by the party with the highest votes in the last presidential election, and the other inspector and substitute by the party with the next highest votes. The Commission on Elections appoints the poll clerk, who are public school teachers.
Each inspector and poll clerk receives a per diem of five pesos per day for meetings and ten pesos for the election day.
The permanent list of voters is renewed every twelve years, with a new list prepared for the 1951 elections and effective until its renewal in 1963.
Official ballots are uniform, provided at public expense, shaped as a strip with stubs and detachable numbered coupons, bear the coat of arms, election details, and instructions, with names of all offices and space to write candidates' names. The reverse side is blank, and in areas using Arabic, titles are printed in Arabic as well.
The voter gives their name and address to an inspector or poll clerk, who then announces the name loudly. If the voter is qualified and unchallenged, the inspector or poll clerk delivers one folded ballot after entering its number in the registry list. No one else can deliver ballots or provide more than one at a time.
Voters must vote secretly inside the booth, not enter booths occupied by others or accompanied by persons, cannot stay over five minutes if others wait, cannot speak other than as allowed, and must not mark or deface the ballot, use carbon or paraffin paper, exhibit or prepare ballots outside the booth, or put identifying marks.
Such ballots are considered spoiled, marked as such, and signed by the inspectors; they are not counted as valid.
They count the ballots, compare with the number of voters who voted, draw out the excess ballots without seeing them, place them in a sealed and signed package labeled 'EXCESS BALLOTS', and keep them in the box without recounting.
Votes are counted by the board reading each ballot aloud while one inspector records tally marks for each candidate and the poll clerk records the count on a blackboard. Ballots are grouped into piles and counted pile by pile, with recounts done for discrepancies. The tallies and ballots are preserved and signed.
They must prepare a written statement in quadruplicate detailing election date, place, total ballots, rejected and excess ballots, and votes per candidate, signed by all members certifying accuracy.
They must meet within fifteen days after the election to canvass votes for national, provincial, and city candidates, proclaim elected candidates, post results, and certify results for higher offices according to the Constitution.
Sections fourteen, fifteen, seventy-seven, and paragraphs nineteen and twenty of section one hundred and forty-nine of the Revised Election Code were repealed.