Ballots to be delivered directly to municipal treasurers

A Commission on Elections (Comelec) official on Tuesday said that they will be sending the official ballots directly to the municipal treasurer, instead of having them delivered to the provincial treasurer first as required by the rules of manual voting. In a chance interview with reporters, Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer said that the poll body en banc made the move to "hasten" the delivery of ballots. "We have been discussing that long before... in order to save time [and] efforts," he said. Ferrer said that under the rules of manual voting, ballots need to go through the provincial treasurer first before disseminating them to the provincial treasurers. But the situation with today's ballots is that they are now packed and sealed by precinct, he explained. "Di na bibilangin yon (They don't have to count these)," he said. Section 186 of the Omnibus Election Code says that no official ballots or election returns shall be delivered to the board of election inspectors earlier than the first hour of election day, unless the Comelec authorizes the delivery at an earlier date. Ferrer said poll machine supplier Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) has been tasked to deliver the ballots. On the other hand, the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines will be delivered to precincts at least three days before election day. The Comelec has enlisted the services of forwarding firms Germalin Enterprises (National Capital Region), Ace Logistics (North and South Luzon), and Argo Forwarders (Visayas and Mindanao) for the transportation of the poll machines. (See: 3 forwarders hired for poll automation project) —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV, GMANews.TV