Quick Guide on Your Right to Vote

With the 2010 national elections just nine months away, Libertas is pitching in the campaign to encourage voting-age citizens help exercise their right to vote with the launch of "A Quick Guide on Your Right to Vote" at Annabel’s Tomas Morato, Quezon City, on August 7, 2009 9:30 a.m.

Aside from guiding first-time voters on the processes involved in registering to vote, the handy, easy-to-read manual provides a means for concerned citizens to combat electoral fraud even before the first ballot is cast. The Quick Guide provides a step-by-step guide on the Commission on Elections' (COMELEC) exclusion proceedings, which allow ordinary citizens to challenge dubious "ghost" voters who should not be in voters' lists.

The Guide also includes tips on how to transfer one’s registration and steps to take for those whose registration record has been deactivated.

Voter registration is currently ongoing, but first-time voters have only until October 31, 2009 to register to vote for the May 2010 polls.

The COMELEC has been working with various groups to encourage first-time voters, mostly from the youth, to register. An estimated 34 million youth are expected to vote in the 2010 elections, 54% of the total voting population, according to Youth Vote Philippines.
According to the COMELEC website, as of March 17, 2009 there are 48,275,594 registered voters.

In the 2007 national elections, 29,498,660 of 43,104,362 registered voters cast their ballots, for a participation rate of 68.4%.The publication was made possible through the support of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), an independent, non-governmental organization providing professional support to electoral democracy, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Copy of the Quick Guide may be downloaded at http://www.libertasphilippines.org