Atienza alarmed by water-logged ballots, seeks Comelec action 10/04/2010

Atienza alarmed by water-logged ballots, seeks Comelec action
10/04/2010
Former three-term Manila Mayor Lito Atienza filed an urgent motion asking the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to direct the Election

Officers of the City of Manila, the City Treasurer and the management of the Museo ng Maynila to explain why some ballot boxes and the ballots are drenched with or soaked in water.

“In the course of the sealing of the ballots of the protested clustered precincts, a substantial number of these ballot boxes and their contents were found to be ‘wet’ or drenched with or soaked in water,” Atienza’s lawyers stated in the urgent motion they filed with the Comelec.

“We believe that this was no accident and clearly an attempt to sabotage our election protest on the part of some individuals who stand to gain should these ballots be set aside and excluded from the recount.” Atienza stressed.

It was discovered that more than 80 ballot boxes from the Fourth and Fifth Districts are wet and/or the ballots they contained are soaked in water.

Because of this, he said, there is an urgent need to have the ballot boxes delivered as soon as possible to the Comelec to immediately commence with the manual recount of all the “wet” ballots found among the ballot boxes that have been in the custody of the city government’s Museo ng Maynila since May..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20101004nat1.html