page_title: Elections in the Philippines
section_title: Process
hierarchical_section_title: Elections in the Philippines / Voting / Process
caption_attribution_description: English: Ballot boxes used for the 2007 Philippine Barangay Elections in Davao.
context_page_description: Elections in the Philippines are of several types. The president, vice-president, and the senators are elected for a six-year term, while the members of the House of Representatives, governors, vice-governors, members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, mayors, vice-mayors, members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod/members of the Sangguniang Bayan, barangay officials, and the members of the Sangguniang Kabataan are elected to serve for a three-year term.
  Congress has two chambers. The House of Representatives has 304 seats as of 2019, of which 80% are contested in single seat electoral districts and 20% are allotted to party-lists according to a modified Hare quota with remainders disregarded and a three-seat cap. These party list seats are only accessible to marginalized and under-represented groups and parties, local parties, and sectoral wings of major parties that represent the marginalized. The Constitution of the Philippines allows the House of Representatives to have more than 250 members by statute without a need for a constitutional amendment. The Senate has 24 members who are elected on a nationwide at-large basis; they do not represent any geographical district.
context_section_description: Once a registered voter finds his/her name in the voters' list and locates the correct precinct, he may queue in line for the distribution of the ballot.
  Prior to the 2010 elections, voters have to write the names of the candidates next to the positions in which they are running. COMELEC-approved nicknames maybe used by the voters in writing the names. After the polling period ends, the Board of Election Inspectors (or the teachers manning the polling precinct) counts the ballots by hand. Once all the ballots are counted, the election returns will now be sent to the city or municipal Board of Canvassers, political parties and other groups.
  The city or municipal Board of Canvassers canvasses the votes from all polling precincts within their jurisdiction and prepares two documents: a Statement of Votes (SOV) in which all votes from all candidates in all positions per precinct is listed; and a Certificate of Canvass (COC), a document showing the vote totals of all candidates within the Board of Canvassers' jurisdiction.
  If the city or municipal Board of Canvassers' jurisdiction is an independent city with its own congressional district, they will send their SOV and COC to the national Board of Canvassers (the COMELEC for senate and party-list elections, Congress for presidential and vice presidential elections). If it is otherwise, they will send their SOV and COC to the provincial Board of Canvassers where the votes as stated from the city or municipal COC will be canvassed. The provincial Board of Canvassers sends their SOV and COC to the national Board of Canvassers once canvassing is done. The national Board of Canvassers then canvasses all COCs and declares the winners for national positions.
caption: Ballot boxes used for the 2007 Philippine Barangay Elections in Davao.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:17 17:13:36", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1054", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6227", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:17 14:04:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:17 14:04:51", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "125237/16384", "EXIF ApertureValue": "453435/65536", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "19", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "504", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "342", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "928", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3888000/877", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "432000/97", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}