The Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), has ordered the Commission on Elections to collect election paraphernalia like ballot boxes and documents relevant to the election protest of defeated vice presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II. In a resolution issued last November 23, the tribunal allowed the Comelec to turn over to the poll body’s First Division the custody of the ballots, ballot boxes, election documents, keys and other paraphernalia used in the May 10, 2010 automated elections for the following areas:
Marikina City in the National Capital Region, Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, Sipalay City, Negros Occidental, Sarangani province Camarines Norte province. The PET’s move was in response to the letter of Comelec First Division clerk Leah Angeli Vazquez-Abad, who asked for permission to collect the election materials in connection with Roxas’ election protest against his bitter rival, Vice President Jejomar Binay, former mayor of Makati City. The Supreme Court sits as PET in resolving election protests in the presidential and vice presidential races. Roxas has asked the tribunal to conduct a “forensic probe" of the May 10 polls and nullify the victory of Binay, who beat him by 700,000 votes. He claimed he had been cheated of victory in about 333,270 precincts nationwide. Roxas made the requests even though the Comelec random manual audit showed that the May 10 nationwide automated elections -- the first in the country's history -- were 99.6 percent accurate. Last August, the tribunal ordered the Comelec to secure all the election paraphernalia used in the recent automated elections. The PET said the Comelec should “preserve and safeguard the integrity of the ballot boxes, their contents and keys, list of voters with voting records, books of voters and other documents and paraphernalia used in the May 2010 elections for the position of vice president of the Republic of the Philippines." The PET also ordered the Comelec to protect the integrity of the data storage devices containing electronic data that show proof of the results “in the contested 76,340 clustered precincts subject of the protest and [Binay's] counter-protest." - KBK, GMANews.TV 
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