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[av_heading heading=’Recount of votes in Talisay starts Dec. 1 ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY TIFFANY ANNE TAN
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BACOLOD City – Votes in several precincts in Talisay City, Negros Occidental will be subject for recount starting Dec. 1.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) First Division ordered the recount in connection with the protest filed by losing mayoral candidate Sheila Yap Saratan against Mayor Nilo Jesus Antonio Neil Lizares.
It will start at exactly 8:30 a.m. at the Comelec’s Electoral Contest Adjudication Department in Intramuros, an eight-page Nov. 23 order signed by Presiding Commissioner Christian Robert Lim stated.
Talisay City’s election officer had delivered the ballot boxes from the pilot protested precincts and these were “securely stored at the Comelec PHLPost warehouse,” stated the order.
A three-man committee comprising a chairperson, a recorder and a ballot box custodian will conduct the recount.
Lim directed the parties to provide two handlers who will carry the ballot boxes during their transfer from the storage area to the recount venue and vice versa.
In September Comelec granted Saratan’s request for a manual vote recount.
Comelec ordered the inventory, retrieval, sealing, and transport of initial 20 percent of the total 97 protested ballot boxes from the custody of the Talisay City Treasurer’s Office to its central office in Intramuros.
Saratan is the wife of former Talisay City mayor Eric Saratan.
During the May elections, she garnered 21,119 votes, while Lizares got 28,440. She cited “electoral fraud” and “questionable result” in filing the election protest./PN
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