HONG KONG – Just 2,000 more and the Consulate would have reached its target of 20,000 new voters for next year's presidential election.
This was disclosed to The SUN on August 26 by Jethro Tull de la Cruz, who heads the overseas voting registration campaign by the Consulate.
A total of 3,545 additional voters last month boosted the overall tally for new registrants to just over 18,000.
Cruz said this makes the target figure very achievable with more than two months left for the registration.
In an earlier interview, Vice Consul Alex Vallespin, head of the cultural section that oversees the OVR, attributed the upsurge in July to the listing of Iglesia Ni Cristo voters, and the setting up of additional registration desks.
On July 7, an OVR desk was installed at PNB World Wide, followed by a desk each on July 10, 17 and 18 at Banco de Oro in the same shopping center and another at LBC North Point.
A desk each was added at LBC World-Wide and LBC Lik Sang in Tsuen Wan on July 19, complementing a mobile registration at the 6th anniversary celebration of Guardians Magic Group in Causeway Bay.
Meanwhile, the OVR desk at the Consulate was also drawing more registrants with 30 to 40 on average on weekdays and more than 100 on Sundays, said Vallespin.
For the first three Sundays of August, the team conducted mobile OVRs at the Jesus is Lord Fellowship in Chai Wan and at LBC North Point, and repeated the activity at LBC North Point on Aug 30.
The Consulate will take the OVR listing to Discovery on September 5 in a bid to further jack up figures.
Distribution of Voters' ID
The re-issued voters ID of those who registered for the overseas voting registration (OVR) in 2003 may be claimed personally or through authorized representative at the PCG service area, Monday to Thursday, from 9am to 4pm, and on Sunday, 9 am to 2 pm.
To facilitate the distribution of the voters ID and avoid long queues, the PCG requests Filcom organizations to claim the voters ID of their members by authorizing any representative.
Please take note that the authorized representative must present (1) an authorization document duly signed by the president or chairperson of the organization (or if it is the president or chairperson him/herself, the authorization document must be signed by the vice-president or vice-chairperson AND secretary); (2) a copy of the representative's passport or Hong Kong ID to serve as proof of identity; (3) authorization document in duplicate copies showing the complete names and signatures of the members who want their IDs claimed by the authorized representative; and the photocopy of the passport or Hong Kong ID of each.
The organization should send advance copy of the above-mentioned list to cultural_hk@yahoo.com to facilitate the distribution. – Rappler.com
This article is republished with permission from The SUN-HK, a content partner of Rappler