Two reported cases of the wrong names appearing in the
ballot receipt and one of vote counting machine malfunction marred an otherwise
quiet Saturday on Apr 30 at the Bayanihan Centre.
At the end of the day, a total of 1,143 people cast their
votes for the Philippine general election, slightly more than for those of the
first two Saturdays of the election.
The total tally for the month-long overseas voting is now
26,701, or 28.8% of the more than 93,000 registered voters.
The first incident happened in room 402 at about 10:30am
when a female voter complained that she marked opposition candidate Rodrigo
Duterte on her ballot but saw instead the name of rival candidate Mar Roxas on
the receipt.
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| Ryan Salac's ballot was not read by the VCM |
Both women called the attention of the special board of election
inspectors and filed formal complaints using pro forma affidavit forms prepared
by election officials.
“You fill up a complaint form so we could forward it to the
Comelec (Commission on Elections),” Vice Consul Alex Vallespin, who is
overseeing the balloting in Hong Kong , told
the woman in the first incident.
“But they’re telling us that of the more than 26,000 who
have voted in Hong Kong, you’re just one of the 13 who complained, out of whom
only two formally filed their complaint to the Comelec,” Vallespin said.
The two cases today brought the number of complaints to 15,
with four of them formalized by the aggrieved voters.
Vallespin remained puzzled about how the reported quirks
happened. He said that as of Apr 29, the election secretariat at Bayanihan had
documented and elevated to the Comelec complaints about alleged receipt
misprints by the vote counting machines.
The VCMs issue receipts showing the names of candidates the
voters marked on their ballots. The voters are asked to check the receipts
before putting these in a drop box.
In yet another incident, a voting machine in Room 601
refused to scan the ballot of the last voter of the day, Ryan Salac, who cast
his vote at around 5:10pm.
After consulting Vice Consul Alex Vallespin, the special board
of election inspectors (SBEI) in that room sealed the ballot of Salac, had him
sign the envelope and told him to return tomorrow morning to try to re-feed his
ballot into the machine.
Meanwhile, four of the 12 voters whose ballots were declared
spoiled when a vote counting machine broke down in Room 502 the previous
Saturday, returned to cast their votes again today, Vallespin said.
The other eight had already been notified to come and vote
again tomorrow, he said. – Vir B.
Lumicao
