CEBU CITY (PNA) — Senior election officials have warned voters of long lines in the May 10 elections and urge them to help speed up the process by preparing and showing up early at their precincts.

“Let us be reminded that this is a very complicated election because this is the first automated election, with 50 million registered voters and a long list of candidates to elect,” said Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal.

Larrazabal, who visited Cebu Saturday, said every voter must take the opportunity to learn how to vote through automation.

Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said voters can help prevent “the same old problems” like locating their precincts, by using an online precinct finder on the agency’s Web site (www.comelec.gov.ph).

Castillano also reiterated his advice for voters to bring lists of their choices when they go to the precincts.

Bringing a sample ballot inside the polling precincts is not prohibited, he said.

What is banned is distributing these sample ballots on Election Day.

Both Castillano and Larrazabal assured that voters who are within a 30-meter radius of their precincts by 6 p.m. will still be allowed to vote.

Precincts will stay open longer this year, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., but Comelec officials are prepared for longer lines, as voters may take some time getting used to the new, 25-inch long ballots.

But they said voters should stay within hearing distance of their precincts.

“There’s a rule that if you are within 30 meters (at the end of voting hours), you can vote. The exception is that if your name is called twice publicly and you don’t go to the chairman (of the Board of Election Inspectors) to get your ballot, you can’t anymore. So, you have to be there,” Larrazabal said.

Comelec will also require the election inspectors to use a classroom next to the voting precinct as a holding area for voters still unable to vote as of 6 p.m.

Larrazabal also said a deceased candidate can be substituted even if the ballots were already printed.

Even if the name of the substitute candidate can no longer be in the ballot, he said, Comelec has ruled that the votes for a deceased candidate will be credited to the substitute.