Commissioner Garcia says 6M ballots had to be set aside after at least one ballot from this batch had been detected to have “problems”
Over 58.8 million ballots for May 9, 2022 polls already printed
(Eagle News) – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has put under “quarantine” over six million printed ballots which had to be “set aside” as part of a procedure whenever a ballot with “problems” had been detected.
Comelec commissioner George Garcia said that 6,161,636 ballots were placed under quarantine as a matter of procedure.
The over six million “quarantined” ballots were out of the 58.8 million ballots that had already been printed in preparation for the May 9, 2022 elections, Garcia said on Thursday, March 24. The total ballots that have to be printed for the May elections are 67,442,616.
As of Thursday, March 24, the Comelec commissioner said that a total of 58,838,453 ballots have already been printed. This represented “87.2 percent of the total number of ballots that we are supposed to print,” he said.
However, of these total printed ballots, 9.14 percent had to be “quarantined” or set aside.
“Of the 58,838,453 (ballots printed), we quarantined 6,161,636, representing 9.14 percent of the total number of ballots that we are supposed to print,” Garcia said in a Comelec press briefing that was also streamed live on the Comelec’s Facebook page on Thursday, March 24.
Garcia, a former election lawyer for presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., explained why these six million ballots had to be quarantined.
“As already explained to you last week, when we say quarantine, may isang balota of the group of ballots na may problema, (so) the entire group of ballots will have to be set aside. We call that quarantine” he said during the Comelec briefing.
-Over 13 million ballots still to be verified-
The Comelec commissioner also disclosed that over 13 million ballots printed have to be “further verified,” meaning these ballots have to undergo the “usual quality control.”
These ballots that have to be further verified are 13,243,103. They are part of the 39.4 million supposedly considered as “good ballots.”
The 39,433,714 good ballots already passed the “highest quality control,” he said.
“This is actually 58.47 percent of the total number of ballots that we are supposed to print,” Garcia said.
“It doesn’t mean that yun lang ang good,” he said, referring to the 39 million supposedly “good ballots.”
“But of the 39 million (ballots), we are still verifying 13,243,103 – meaning undergoing the usual verification, the usual quality control,” he said.
And of the over 58 million ballots that were already printed, he said that Comelec had to quarantine over six million ballots.
Commissioner Garcia said that they have so far verified over 45 million ballots.
-105,853 defective ballots to be reprinted-
So far, from the printed over 58 million ballots, the number of defective ballots that have to be reprinted and reverified are 105,853, representing 0.18 percent of the total ballots, he said.
The Comelec has earlier drawn flak for the printing of ballots at the National Printing Office (NPO) for the May 9, 2022 elections that was done without the presence of observers.
Comelec commissioner Marlon Casquejo had previously said that the poll body “apologize for that” and reasoned out that the absence of election observers and watchdogs during the ballot printing was due to Covid-19 restrictions. He claimed the printing of ballots was done when there were high Covid-19 cases.
“That was the time when Covid (cases) is very high,”Casquejo said.
“But then again that is not an excuse,” he added.
-Random inspection of ballots-
After this, the Comelec agreed to have a random inspection of the printed ballots also on Thursday, March 24.
During the random inspection, 10 ballot boxes were selected from the Comelec’s warehouse in Pasig City and the NPO basement in Quezon City. These were brought to the NPO conference room for random ballot inspection.
The Comelec currently under Chair Saidamen Pangarungan, vowed to work for clean, honest and peaceful elections.
(Eagle News Service)