Article by:
Ferdinand Patinio
MANILA – An official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Tuesday he wants an investigation on the incident in Singapore where an overseas voter was given a spoiled ballot.
Commissioner George Garcia said the incident should not have happened as it would generate doubt on the integrity of the May 9 polls.
“Personally, I’m so concerned because this should not have happened at all. A single incident like this can create a doubt as to the integrity of the entire process,” he said in a television interview.
“Of course, this is human error, we realized that but we are asking and we are pleading to our electoral board that the same incident should not happen again in the future,” Garcia added.
He noted they received a confirmation of the incident late Monday afternoon.
“I was even asking yesterday if indeed it was only one ballot or several ballots. But at least the Embassy confirmed it involved only one ballot but then we should really investigate this incident,” Garcia said.
“This should not happen again. We should really find out why the spoiled ballot was given to the voter in the first place,” he added.
The Comelec commissioner said spoiled ballots have to be segregated and put in an envelope for spoiled ballots and should not be included in the good or valid ballots.
“So we are asking the reason why and definitely we will be able to get that answer in the next few days,” he added.
The one-month overseas voting started last April 10 and will end on May 9.
On Monday, the Philippine embassy in Singapore issued a statement confirming that one spoiled ballot was inadvertently and unintentionally given to a voter.
It added that it was an isolated incident. (PNA)
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