CEBU CITY, Philippines—At least 722 voters in Barangay (village) Gabi, Cordova town, Cebu would have to wait another day to cast their votes.
Director Jose Nick Mendros of the Commission on Elections in Central Visayas (Comelec-7) on Monday said only 10 official ballots were printed for the village which were delivered to Barangay Jolomaynon in Dalaguete town, 104 kilometers away from Cordova.
“There was a misdelivery of (10) ballots. But upon further verification, we found out that there were really no other printed ballots for Barangay Gabi,” he told a news conference at the election media center in the Police Regional Office in Cental Visayas (PRO-7) in Cebu City on Monday morning.
Mendros said the Comelec central office in Manila advised him to suspend the elections in one clustered precinct in Barangay Gabi until official ballots are printed.
“We will proceed with the elections after printing the ballots. As to when? I don’t know. It will be the decision of the Comelec en banc. Definitely, it will be after election day because the ballots have to be printed in Manila,” he said.
Early Monday, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) assigned to Barangay Gabi received from the Office of the Municipal Treasurer in Cordova a box with a mark “For Barangay Gabi, Cordova.”
However, when they opened it, the ballots are for Barangay Jolomaynon in Dalaguete town.
The BEIs surmised that there was a switching of ballots.
When poll officials called up Jolomaynon, they learned that the clustered precinct in Dalaguete received the correct ballots for the barangay although they also got 10 stray ballots from Barangay Gabi.
“There’s no problem with Jolomaynon. The problem is with Barangay Gabi because the printed ballots for the place are only those (10) stay ballots sent to Jolomaynon,” Mendros said.
The failure to print the ballots for a clustered precinct in Barangay Gabi has affected 722 voters who decided to go home.
“If the issue was swapping of ballots, we could have addressed it right away. But the problem here is that there are really no printed ballots for Barangay Gabi,” he said.
As of 10 a.m., Mendros said the Comelec-7 had not received similar complaints or of any vote-counting machines (VCM) that malfunctioned.
“So far, all VCMs in all polling centers are functioning,” he said.
A total of 4,066 VCMs were distributed to all clustered precincts in Cebu. Mendros said they have a total of 158 spare VCMs in case one of the machines in the polling centers would bog down.
For VCMs that experienced paper jams, Mendros said that it might be caused by misalignment of the ballot box’s cover with the VCM slot.
He said that paper jams could be solved with the help of VCM technicians, so the reserved contingency VCMs would only be for replacing non-functioning VCMs. RAM/rga
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