THE National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) is eyeing the deployment of up to 100,000 volunteers for the May 9 elections.
In an online media forum, Namfrel chairman Gus Lagman said the poll watchdog is hoping to recruit at least 50,000 volunteers who will be deployed to polling precincts on Election Day, “but hopefully, we can reach 100,000 because there are over 100,000 clustered precincts.”
“We want to have a volunteer in every polling precinct. If not, each volunteer will have to be assigned for two precincts,” he added.
The former poll commissioner said Namfrel started the recruitment process this month and will continue up to next month
To become a Namfrel volunteer, he said, the public may visit the group’s website: https://namfrel.org.ph.
Qualified to apply are individuals who are non-partisan, not barangay officials or “tanod” (watchmen), have not been convicted of any election offense, are willing to observe safety protocols, and will commit to follow policies of Namfrel and of the Commission on Elections.
For the May polls, Namfrel is looking to conduct a parallel vote tabulation of the election results.
Namfrel is also set to participate in the conduct of the random manual audit of the poll results.
