Comelec: 'Bad' ballots only 105K, not over 5 million

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday corrected its earlier report indicating that over five million printed ballots for the 2022 May polls had been found defective.

At a hybrid press briefing, Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said upon investigation only 105,000 and not 5.2-million ballots were considered as "bad ballots".

He said the bloated numbers stemmed from some ballots being set aside with the rejected ones prior to their verification.

Garcia said that if 1,000 ballots were printed at a precinct where one was found to be defective, the remaining 999 would also have to be verified.

"So ilan talaga defective na nakita so far? It's 105, 350 ballots. Yan and defective, rejected," Garcia said.

Defective ballots are those smudges, wrong lines, colors, improper cut, or other printing errors.

Out of the total 5,505,268 that have been set aside, Garcia said 3, 344, 333 were found to be good ballots. 1, 943, 935 meanwhile, are still pending verification.

To ensure transparency in the electoral process, the poll body said it will conduct random testing on printed ballots which will be opened to observers.  —Sundy Mae Locus/NB, GMA News