JLo top vote-getter in mock elections

MANILA, Philippines - If they have a choice, Filipinos would love to have JLo in the Senate.

Popular singer-actress Jennifer Lopez, who performed in Manila last November, emerged as the top senatorial choice of Filipinos in the mock elections conducted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last Saturday.

The former “American Idol” judge got the highest number of votes – 77 – in the poll race that had names of foreign celebrities as candidates. This was done to avoid controversy.

“Jennifer Lopez is the clear winner,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said, citing results of the mock polls held at the University of the Philippines-Integrated School (UPIS) in Quezon City.

Lopez was followed by fellow American actress Cameron Diaz with 68 votes.

Other top vote-getters were musician Frank Allison and astronaut Neil Armstrong, who obtained 61 votes each; King of Pop Michael Jackson (58); Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise (54); Canadian crooner Michael Buble (50); pop superstar Mariah Carey (49); actor Harrison Ford (48); and action star Silvester Stallone (48).

Also included in the star-studded race were singers Bryan Adams, Paul Anka and Celine Dion; and actors Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bullock, Farrah Fawcett, Jodie Foster, Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp, Richard Gere and Hugh Grant.

For the party-list race – which featured the names of local bands – Katipunan had the highest number of votes (13) followed by Aegis (11), and Kabisayaan (7).

Among the other ‘candidates’ for the party-list race were 3rd Avenue, 6 Cyclemind, 8 Inches, Itchyworms, Jeremiah and K and the Boxers.

Jimenez said the Comelec will still collate all the results of the mock polls from 20 voting centers in 10 areas across the country.

Meanwhile, Jimenez expressed disappointment over the low turnout of voters in the mock polls, but said this is not a cause for concern.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes earlier said that 1,639 actual registered voters took part in the mock polls that were held to ensure smooth elections come May.

“We know that if it is the real, actual elections, people really do come. For a mock election, it is probably not that urgent for them,” he said.

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), for its part, is satisfied with the conduct of the mock polls.

PPCRV chair Henrietta de Villa said there were slight differences in the random manual audit, but it was not alarming.

She said that the differences may be due to the decision of the Comelec that ambiguous marks would still be counted in the auditing, with accompanying notes, even though the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines will not be counting them.

“These will now be verified further by the Comelec as to where they can be attributed,” said De Villa.

The Comelec also admitted that they had a hard time transmitting some of the results so they will have to review signal mapping.