MANILA — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday destroyed more than 1 million rejected or defective official ballots for the May 14 Barangay (village) and Sangguniang Kabataan (youth council) elections at the National Printing Office in Quezon City.
Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez said the 1,056,154 total number of defective ballots were shredded to pieces.
“Under the law, the Comelec can only produce one is to one ballot. During the printing, it happens, there will be excess or errors in printing,” Jimenez said in an interview after the inauguration of the Command Center for the upcoming elections.
Of the total, 544,753 were ballots for the SK elections, while another 511,401 were for the barangay polls.
“We need to destroy them to avoid any possible misuse. We asked the media to cover it for the people to be informed on how many ballots (were) involved and how they were destroyed to avoid questions later,” Jimenez added.
Poll watchdog groups were present during the destruction of the spoiled ballots for security and transparency. (PNA)
