SAN JOSE, Antique – The delivery of ballot boxes intended for Antique province is now complete. The reported 30 undelivered boxes were finally transported to their intended municipalities in the province on Tuesday.
Atty. Wil Arceño, Antique election supervisor, said the regional office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and service provider F2 Logistics were quick to trace the missing ballot boxes after the incident was reported.
“The 30 ballot boxes were mistakenly transported by our service provider to the Comelec hub in Iloilo and were not forwarded to Antique until after we reported about it,” Arceño said.
Two of the ballot boxes are intended for this capital town, six for Belison, and 22 for Patnongon.
In an earlier interview, the election supervisor said the delivery of the election paraphernalia started on April 27 and was supposed to end on May 2.
Meanwhile, Arceño already inspected the 385 vote counting machines (VCMs) intended for the northern towns of Antique and are currently stored in a warehouse in Aklan.
The province will be using 794 VCMS and the remaining 409 machines intended for southern towns are being kept in a warehouse in Iloilo.
“The 794 VCMs is equivalent to the number of the clustered precincts in Antique,” Arceño said.
The inspection was in preparation for the final testing and sealing (FTS) that will be conducted on May 6 and 7 under Section 52 of the Comelec Resolution No. 10727 promulgated on Nov. 10, 2021.
The FTS will be conducted in central schools in the municipalities of Belison, Libertad, and Tibiao to make sure that they are in good condition before its deployment.
In the Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA) or the island barangays like in the Municipality of Caluya, the VCMs will be deployed a day before the May 9 election day to make sure that they are already ready before the polling precincts open.
The VCMs will be deployed early morning of election day for other places that are just nearby and could be easily reached.
Antique province has 387,998 registered voters for this election. (PNA)
