THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) insisted that there is no issue, nothing is anomalous, and there is no cause for alarm on thousands of rejected ballots seen in Certificates of Canvass (COCs).
Comelec Spokesperson Atty. John Rex Laudiangco explained that the number of rejected ballots is not the count of actual ballots that were spoiled.
He said that is the count the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) make based on the number of times ballots were fed to the VCM.
Laudiangco said, for example, a ballot that was rejected or unread three times by a VCM, but was eventually accepted and read by the VCM on the fourth time, the first three times will be included in the count of rejected ballots.
He pointed out that the VCMs were specifically designed to count those attempts in the feeding of ballots for the purpose of transparency and integrity of the election process.
He cited other machines such as an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), where there are also times that it rejects ATM cards.
If the number of rejected ballots will be considered the same as the number of spoiled ballots, there will be a numerical anomaly since the ballots are all accounted for.
Earlier, many posts were shared on social media that shows pages of COCs with thousand of rejected ballots.
Meanwhile, the canvassing of the Comelec acting as the National Board of Canvassers for the senatorial and party-list elections resumed past 2 pm today.
Only 52 COCs remain uncanvassed out of the 173 COCs.