The Commission on Election (Comelec) is hoping for better turnout in the overseas absentee voting (OAV) which starts on April 10 after it provided free postage for ballots, which will be sent via mail.

Comelec Commissioner George Garcia on Monday told the ''Laging Handa'' virtual public briefing: ''We were able to address that so our nationals will be able to vote through courier." No amount was given.

"We urge them to take advantage of the opportunity (overseas voting)--the start of their voting will be on April 10 and it will end on May 9 (2022). So that's a month-long period for voting," he added.

On Sunday, Comelec said it was able to deploy 80 percent of around 1.7 million ballots for overseas voters.

Last year, Comelec said it expected a 30 to 40 percent drop in mail voters due to lack of funding for postage stamps.

Comelec said 29 Filipino posts abroad will make use of postal voting and use automated election system (AES) for counting votes.

It added 37 posts will be using postal voting but will manually count votes; 22 posts will require voters to personally cast their votes, which will be counted via automated election system; and 18 remaining posts will hold personal voting and then count their votes manually. DMS