By Ahikam Pasion/Philippine News Agency
SAN CARLOS CITY, Pangasinan — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) here disproved the credibility of the viral video on Facebook featuring some alleged pre-shaded ballots and called it a hoax.
The viral video, showing ballots allegedly ‘pre-shaded’ with ultraviolet markings on names of some senatorial candidates, gained almost a million views and has quickly become viral.
“Una sa lahat, yung mga tinatawag nila na pre-shaded na mga bilog kapag inilagay sa ultraviolet light, peke yon. Hindi naman kasi perpektong bilog yung mga nasa balota natin, kundi oblong. Hugis itlog po (First of all, the alleged pre-shaded ballots with markings that can only be seen under ultraviolet light, are fake. The shading area of official ballots are not perfect circles but are oblong; shaped as eggs unlike that in the viral video),” city election officer lawyer Nathaniel Siaden said in an interview Monday.
Siaden said the official ballots have also been configured to react with the vote counting machines (VCM), citing some security features such as Quick Response (QR code) embedded within the ballot itself — something lacking in the video posted online.
He noted the official ballots were configured by the SD card in the VCM.
“Kahit ipasok ang na-shadean na ballot na kumakalat online, ang lalabas sa VCM fake ballot kasi nga hindi naka-configure yan sa machine (Even if the shaded ballot circulating online will be inserted in the VCM, it will be recognized by the machine as fake ballot because it was not configured),” Siaden explained.
The ultraviolet marks cannot be read by the VCM as it only looks for the black ink used in shading the ballots on election day, he added.
Siaden reminded the public not to be easily persuaded, especially with the widespread disinformation in the internet nowadays.
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