• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
With less than a week to go before the May 12 national and local elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will start distributing official ballots to City and Municipal Treasurer’s offices in 32 Negros Occidental local government units on May 7.
The official ballots, which arrived on Sunday, are currently stored in a Comelec logistics hub in Bacolod City, secured by police troopers.
Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Ian Lee Ananoria said that the ballots were already segregated and preloaded on cargo trucks for quick delivery to the city halls and municipal halls on Wednesday.
Negros Occidental has a total of 2,009,564 registered voters in 662 barangays in 19 municipalities and 13 cities. It has a total of 2,484 clustered precincts.
Upon their arrival at their respective destinations, Ananoria said the official ballots, based on their initial count, will be verified by the local election officers, in the presence of representatives of various political parties and their respective watchers.
He added that the final testing and sealing of the Automatic Counting Machines will be conducted on Wednesday to ensure its accuracy.
The official ballots will be delivered to the clustered precincts on election day, unless there is an advisory for early release, Ananoria further said.
Meanwhile, representatives of the European Union Election Observation Mission Philippines 2025 recently visited Ananoria for a coordination meeting, to observe the conduct of election in Negros Occidental.*
