NEGROS Occidental, including its capital Bacolod City, has the highest number of registered persons deprived of liberty (PDL) voters in Western Visayas who will be casting their votes today, May 9.Of the 3,939 PDL voters in the region, 2,677 or roughly 68 percent are from various jail facilities in Negros Occidental and in the highly urbanized city of Bacolod, records from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Western Visayas showed.It added that 2,347 of these registered PDLs in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City, or about 87.7 percent, are male and the rest are female.BJMP-Western Visayas spokesperson lawyer Jairus Anthony Dogelio told Sunstar Bacolod that under the rules of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), there are two ways that the PDLs could cast their votes.First is through the onsite voting, wherein polling precincts will be established for jail facilities with more than a hundred PDL registered voters, Dogelio said.As to jail facilities with at least 50 PDL registered voters, he said, only special polling areas will be set up.If no polling precinct or special voting area will be set up in the jail facility, registered PDL voters may be able to exercise their right of suffrage through escorted voting, Dogelio also said.The BJMP official, however, stressed that it’s up to the jail warden to allow PDL registered voters who are considered “security risks” to go on escorted voting.Under the law, a court order is necessary before a PDL is allowed to go out from a jail facility aside from attending a court hearing.