(Eagle News)—Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol’s voting in Kidapawan was delayed on Monday, May 13, after the vote-counting machine refused to accept his ballot.
In a Facebook post, Piñol said after an hour of waiting following the rejection, he asked the 3-member electoral board in his polling precinct in Paco to examine what went wrong.
He said after a “thorough inspection,” the chairperson noticed that there was a “ballpen marking on the edge of the ballot.”
“She admitted that in her haste, she may have accidentally caused the marking,” Piñol said.
Piñol said the 3-person board decided to give him a new ballot by unanimous decision.
He said this was accepted by the machine.
“I fought for my right to vote especially so since my daughter and three siblings are involved in the race and mainly because I believe that a lifeless machine should not prevent me from exercising my Constitutional right to vote,” he said.
“Moral of the story? When you know you’re right, fight for it and never give up,” he said.
