By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/Philippine News Agency
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — The Municipal Election Officer of this capital town is inviting candidates to witness the ballot verification that they will conduct Thursday morning.
Election Officer Atty. Rommel Benliro said in an interview Wednesday that they are inviting the candidates or their representatives as part of ensuring the sanctity of the ballot.
“We invite the candidates or if they could not come, to send their representatives for the ballot verification at the Municipal Hall at 9 a.m.,” he said.
He said San Jose de Buenavista and the other towns in the province received the ballots and other election paraphernalia last week from the Comelec provincial office.
“As for the Vote Counting Machines (VCM), there will be a simultaneous final testing and sealing on May 10,” he said.
The VCM for this municipality will be delivered on May 10 directly to polling precincts so it will no longer be placed under the custody of the municipal treasurer.
Benliro added that there will be a contingency of about five to six units of VCMs for each town as substitute in case of malfunction.
“We have already trained technical support staff or information technology experts,” he said.
He said the technical support staff would be on hand to do trouble shooting in case of technical problems.
Benliro said that marking pens with 2019 National and Local Election label have been recalled by the Comelec central office after finding out it is not quick drying and might cause problems on the optical scanner.
“We expect though to have replacement for the marking pens to arrive just before election day,” he said.
He added that there are enough marking pens that were used during the 2013 election that could still be used on May 13.
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