MANILA, Philippines?The ballot to be used in the May elections has undergone a makeover with the names of candidates listed horizontally instead of vertically.

In an en banc meeting Tuesday, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) approved the new layout and design to save space upon the recommendation of the poll body?s technical working committee and Smartmatic-TIM Corp.

?The design is a more efficient distribution of the names of the candidates and political parties to maximize the space of the ballot face,? said Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal.

In the first nationwide computerized elections on May 10, voters will not write the names of their chosen candidates but will instead shade the oval space representing their choices before the ballot is fed into the counting machine supplied by Smartmatic-TIM.

In the initial ballot design, the positions and the names of the candidates were written in a column. Under the new arrangement, the names will be in rows.

As in the previous design, the names will be written in a nonserif font and the contests will be separated by colored lines to make the ballot easier for voters to read.

Shortened to 25 inches

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said the new design would shorten the ballots to 25 inches instead of 26 inches. However, he admitted that the new arrangement was not tested among focus groups, unlike the first ballot design.

The Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM used the horizontal design in the ballots to be used in training voters for the May 10 polls. The printing of the 800,000 sample ballots was finished recently at the National Printing Office.

Jimenez said the poll body would not print new training ballots.

Asked if the new design would confuse voters, Jimenez said: ?We will just have to double time on informing the public on the new shape of the ballot. But it is really not that critical because what we are teaching the people is how to shade the oval.?

Not consulted

He said newspaper ads would be taken out to show the new ballot design.

Ramon Casiple, a member of the Comelec Advisory Council, said the group was not consulted on the final design. He added it could have an impact on the voter education campaign.

?The public is used to reading it downward. But I don?t think this will be a big problem. The important thing is that this will be readable for the voters,? Casiple said.