Recount of 3rd district votes starts today

THE retrieval of ballot boxes in Cebu’s 3rd district for former Pinamungajan Mayor Geraldine “Gaye” Yapha’s election protest against Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia is scheduled to start today.

The House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) issued a notice last Nov. 13 to both parties to facilitate the recount of votes cast in the district during last May’s elections. Garcia won the district with a slim lead of 1,984 votes.

Tribunal secretary Girlie Salarda said the HRET order requested representatives from the Yapha and Garcia parties to furnish designation papers to HRET representative Arthur Maberit.

Representatives from HRET and the two parties will meet on Nov. 19 at the Commission on Elections Office (Comelec) office in Toledo City “to map out an efficient and expeditious collection procedure.”

Last July, Yapha filed an election protest before the HRET questioning the 41,858 stray ballots in Cebu’s 3rd district that were unaccounted for.

She said they weren’t processed by the precinct optical scan (PCOS) machines.

Yapha said all the ballots should have been counted because she filed her election protest last May 31, which is within the Comelec’s prescribed period for filing protests

A former mayor of Pinamunjahan town, Yapha is allied with the Liberal Party (LP) Cebu chapter while Garcia ran under One Cebu with ties to the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). Correspondent Peter L. Romanillos