By Rjay Zuriaga Castor
The transmission of votes from the island municipality of Caluya in Antique has been delayed due to an unexpected shortage of ballots, the Comelec-6 confirmed on Monday night.
Comelec-6 Director Atty. Dennis Ausan said that of the 938 registered voters in the town, only 421 were able to cast their votes before ballot supplies were depleted, leaving 517 voters unable to vote.
“For whatever reason, the Electoral Board (EB) reported the shortage of ballots late in the afternoon, when the supply was already nearly exhausted,” he said.
He noted that the EB was expected to count the ballots after opening the ballot box earlier in the day — a step that could have prevented the incident but was not carried out.
Initially, Comelec-6 considered distributing the remaining ballots among the voters, assuming there would not be a 100% voter turnout, but this plan was eventually abandoned.
“Eventually we saw that the idea was not viable, so we worked on the reprinting of the ballots,” Ausan said.
The contingency ballots are currently being printed at the National Printing Office in Quezon City and are expected to arrive in Caluya by Tuesday, May 13.
From Manila, the ballots will be transported to Caticlan in Aklan, then to Libertad, Antique, where the Philippine Coast Guard will ferry them to the island municipality.
Voting will be extended to allow the remaining voters to cast their votes, Ausan confirmed.
“It will be extended, but no problem with it since they opened on time. It is also like a machine malfunctioning that authorities assigned at the precinct have to wait,” he said.
Ausan clarified that the incident does not constitute a failure of elections, as voting began on time.
