Comelec’s Garcia says nearly 106K defective ballots set to be burned

Newly appointed Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner George Garcia on Monday said nearly 106,000 ballots for the May 9 polls have been considered defective and will be burned in front of candidates, political parties, or their representatives.

Appearing before the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, Garcia said that to date, a total of 105,853 ballots were found with smudges, improper cuts and colors, or unmatched timestamps.

“There are certain ballots with smudges, there are certain ballots cut unevenly, there are ballots, the timestamp po ‘yung sa gilid ‘pag nakita niyo ‘yung balota, merong timestamp, hindi nagtatapat, dapat po kasi laging nagtatapat ‘yun. And then the colors, your Honor, hindi siya tamang colors ng balota (the timestamp at the side does not match and the colors of the ballots were also not right),” he said.

He then noted that 82.4% or 55,579,298 ballots out of 67,432,616 total ballots had also been printed.

The remaining 18% of ballots yet to be printed could, however, not be assured to be defect-free, he added.

Those with errors will then be burned.

“Para mas ma-satisfy ang ating Committee, these defective ballots will be presented to the public, accounted for individually with proper data, at ang lahat ng ito ay susunugin (all of these will be burned) in front of all the political parties, the candidates, and their representatives,” Garcia said.

He further pointed out that the Comelec is aiming to accomplish 100% ballot printing by the second week of April, with the defective ballots having been reprinted already by then. They are to expedite the printing using the four fully operational machines, with one being imported from Germany by the National Printing Office.

Once completed, the ballots will be shipped and distributed to provincial and city treasurers. 

Last week, Garcia corrected the Comelec’s earlier report indicating that 5.2 million printed ballots for the 2022 elections were found defective.

Garcia also said during the same session that the Comelec would randomly test ballots this coming Thursday. — RSJ, GMA News