Questioned ballot boxes to be sent to Manila

Questioned ballot boxes to be sent to Manila

SOME 24 ballot boxes from six clustered precincts in Cebu City will be sent to the main office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Manila for a recount in relation to the election protest that suspended and outgoing Mayor Michael Rama filed against Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña.

The Electoral Contests Adjudication Department of Comelec sent notices to Osmeña and lawyer Ernesto Rama, the outgoing mayor’s legal counsel, to inform them about this.

Some of the ballot boxes had already been subjected to a random manual audit (RMA).

Asked if he has received the notice, Rama, in a phone interview, said he has yet to check with his lawyer, who was the addressee of the communication sent by Comelec.

Osmeña posted a copy of the notice on his official Facebook account.

The RMA was conducted last May 10, a day after the elections to determine the accuracy of the vote counting machines (VCM).

In his press conference yesterday, Osmeña said Comelec informed him that that results reflected in the VCMs and in the RMA were almost the same.

He explained that there were at least two under votes that the RMA team counted, which the VCM did not read.

“In the 24 precincts, I won all of them, in the manual audit. Then after that they closed it and sent it to Manila,” Osmeña said.

Osmeña said initial results proved that elections in the city were clean and honest.

This was contrary to Rama’s claims that he was robbed of votes and that he was cheated, which led him to file the protest before Comelec.

In a comment on the Facebook post of Osmeña, Councilor-elect Jocelyn Pesquera of Team Rama said that during the RMA conducted last May 10 at the Department of Education Cebu City office, five of six precincts showed errors in counting.

The results were reflect- ed in the election returns, she said.

“This is the first time that Comelec conducted another audit on the same ballot without informing the camp of Mayor Rama before the date of the intended RMA,” Pesquera said.

In response, the incoming mayor accused Pesquera of lying, saying she should present more evidence before making any accusation.