BALLOT INVENTORY DONE THIS WEEK

Cebu City mayoral poll recount to start after inventory this week

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Cebu City is expected to finish the inventory and sealing of ballot boxes in the election protest filed by former Cebu City mayor Michael Rama against Mayor Tomas Osmeña this week.

After they started the inventory last week, Cebu City North District Election Officer Marchel Sarno said that as of yesterday, they have yet to complete the process since they have to go through all the ballot boxes stored in several

Sealed ballots will be sent to Manila Comelec storage to await recount

container vans.

“We can’t fast-track the process because we have to go through all the ballot boxes and find those contested ballots. But once we’re done, we will immediately transport these ballot boxes,” Sarno told reporters.

Once sealing will be done, Sarno said they will ship the ballot boxes to Manila and store them at the National Comelec warehouse while waiting for the recount.

The Comelec, along with City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo and representatives of Rama and Osmeña, were present since they started the inventory of the ballot boxes from 168 precincts that are under protest.

For security, representatives of both camps along with Comelec personnel and the police will escort the contested ballot boxes once these will be transported to Manila.

As of yesterday, Sarno said they also conducted an inventory of election certified voters’ list, which will be submitted to the Central Office along with the ballot boxes.

So far, Comelec has yet to schedule the start of the recount. /