Local Absentee Voting Act

Section 1

The recount of ballots shall commence on the date specified in the preliminary conference order, unless rescheduled by Order of the Division.

Section 2

There shall be constituted such number of recount committees as may be necessary. The list of the recount committees shall be submitted by the Division Clerk of the Commission, through the Director IV, Electoral Contests Adjudication Department, to the Presiding Commissioner of either the First or Second Division. Each recount committee shall be composed of a Recount Coordinator/Chairman who shall be a lawyer of the Commission, recorder, clerk, typist and ballot box custodian and one representative each from the protestant and the protestee. The Commission shall designate the Recount Coordinators/ Chairman from among its personnel. The parties shall also designate their respective alternative representatives. The recount committee shall conduct the recount in the Commission's premises or at such other places as may be designated by the Commission, but in every case under its strict supervision. The members of the Recount Committee shall discharge their duties with the highest degree of integrity, conducting the proceedings with the same dignity and discipline as if undertaken by the Commission itself. They shall exercise extraordinary diligence and take precautionary measures to prevent the loss, disappearance or impairment of the integrity of the ballots and the other election documents, whether electronic or printed, and other election paraphernalia.

Section 3

The Commission shall fix the compensation of the members of the Committee including the fees for supplies and materials, storage of election paraphernalia, honoraria of warehouse ballot box custodian, photocopying watchers and security details at Three Thousand Pesos (P3,000.00) per precinct and shall be distributed as follows: Chairman — P1,000.00 Recorder — P500.00 Recount Ballot Box Custodian — P480.00 Supplies/Materials — P400.00 Storage — P85.00 The over-all Supervisor shall also receive an honorarium of P100 for every ballot box opened and recounted, but in no case shall he receive less than the highest honorarium that maybe received by any of the committee chairmen. Warehouse ballot box custodians shall be allotted an honorarium of P50 for every ballot box they will handle, which amount shall be shared among all of them. A portion of the said cash deposit shall be allotted and set aside for the honoraria of the following support staff for each ballot box as follows: ECAD Security Personnel — 4 x P35 = P140.00 COMELEC Drivers — 2 x P35 = P70.00 Organic Security Personnel — 2 x P35 = P70.00 PNP Personnel — 2 x P35 = P70.00 Xerox Machine Watchers — 1 x P35 = P35.00 The cost of decryption of the ballot images shall be Five Hundred Pesos (P500.00) per compact flash (CF) card. Said amount shall be allocated as follows: One hundred Pesos (P100.00) for electricity; Fifty Pesos (P50.00) for the use of computers and printers; and Three Hundred Fifty Pesos (P350.00) for the honoraria of the Election Records and Statistics Department (ERSD) representative/s. All consumables for the decryption, generation and printing of ballot images, such as toner and coupon bonds shall be provided by the parties. (as amended by COMELEC Resolution No. 9720)

Section 4

Once commenced, the recount shall continue from day to day as far as practicable until terminated. a) Period for Recount. — recount shall be conducted from 8:30 o'clock in the morning to 12:00 noon and from 1:30 to 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon from Monday to Friday, except on non-working holidays. The members of the Recount Committee may take a fifteen-minute break in each session. b) Recount to continue even if a party representative is absent or late. — The recount of ballots shall not be delayed or postponed by reason of the absence or tardiness of a party representative as long as the Recount Coordinator and one party representative are present. The Commission may at any time designate another Recount Coordinator if the regular Recount Coordinator fails for any reason to report. c) If the representative of the protestee is absent or late. — If the representative of the protestee is absent or late for thirty minutes and no alternate appears as a substitute, the recount shall, nevertheless, commence; the protestee shall be deemed to have waived the right to appear and to object to the ballots in the precinct or precincts scheduled for recount on that particular day. d) If the representative of protestant or counter-protestant, or of both parties fail to appear. — If the representative of the protestant, or of both parties and alternates fail to appear for no justifiable reason within one hour after fixed hours from the start of the recount, the ballot boxes scheduled for that day, and the corresponding keys in the possession of the chairperson, shall be returned to the ballot box custodian of the Commission and shall no longer be recounted; it is understood that the parties waive their right to recount the same, and the Recount Coordinator concerned shall state such facts in the corresponding Recount report.

Section 5

During the recount of ballots, no person other than the Commission, the clerk of the Commission, the Recount Coordinators and the members of the recount committees, the parties and their duly authorized representatives, shall have access to the recount area.

Section 6

The recount of the votes on the ballots shall be done manually and visually and according to the procedures hereunder: (a) At the preliminary conference, the date, place, the mode of the recount of votes on the ballots from each of the protested precincts and the number of the recount committees shall be set. (b) The recount of the ballots in the remaining contested precincts shall not commence until the Division concerned shall have made a determination on the merit of the protest based on the results of the recount of the votes on the ballots from the pilot protested precincts and the review of other documentary exhibits which the protestant may submit. The documentary exhibits may be submitted by the protestant within a non-extendible period of ten (10) days from the completion of the recount of the pilot protested precincts. Based on the above determination, the Division may dismiss the protest, without further proceedings, if no reasonable recovery could be established from the pilot protested precincts. Otherwise, the recount of the ballots in the remaining protested precincts shall proceed. The recount of the pilot counter-protested precincts if substantial recovery is likewise established by the counter protestant, shall then follow. For this purpose, there is substantial recovery when the protestant or counter protestant is able to recover at least 20% of the overall vote lead of the protestee or counter protestee. However, the above-mentioned procedure shall not be applicable in case the protestant avails the option of reading/appreciation of the rejected ballots only pertaining to the entire protested or counter-protested precincts under Section 4(e) of Rule 13. (c) At the appointed place and day, the Recount Committee/s shall convene and the ballot boxes containing the ballots from the designated pilot precincts, the data storage device used in said precincts, as well as the machine or any device that can be used to authenticate the genuineness of the ballots shall be brought to the venue of the recount. (d) The different Recount Committees will be provided with an adequate workspace with tables and chairs that would enable them to perform the recount. (e) Before the opening of the ballot box, the Recount Committee shall note its condition as well as that of the locks or locking mechanism and record the condition in the recount report. From its observation, the Recount Committee must also make a determination as to whether the integrity of the ballot box has been preserved. In the event that there are signs of tampering or if the ballot box appears to have been compromised, the Recount Committee shall still proceed to open the ballot box and make a physical inventory of the contents thereof. The committee shall, however, record its general observation of the ballots and other documents found in the ballot box. (f) Prior to the actual conduct of the recount of the votes, the Recount Committee must authenticate each and every ballot to make sure that they are genuine. The authentication shall be through the use of PCOS machine or through any other device capable of performing the desired authentication requirement through the use of the bar codes and the ultra-violet ray code detection mechanism, at the option of the Commission. The Recount Committee shall also check the ballot ID and the clustered precinct number indicated in each ballot. (g) Only when the Recount Committee, through its chairman, determines that the integrity of the ballots has been preserved or that no signs of tampering of the ballots are present, will the recount proceed. In case there are signs that the ballots contained therein are tampered, compromised, wet or are otherwise in such a condition that it could not be recounted, the Recount Committee shall follow paragraph (l) of this rule. (h) The ballot box shall then be opened, and the ballots taken out. The Recount Committee shall then segregate, classify and count the ballots as: ballots for the protestant including ballots with identifying marks ballots for the protestee including ballots with identifying marks ballots for other candidate/s stray ballots ballots with voting marks Stray ballots refer to ballots with two or more shades or without any shade in the contested position. Marked ballots refer to those ballots containing marks outside the ovals, which marks could either be identifying marks or voting marks. Voting marks are markings placed beside the ovals that may appear to show the intent of the voter to vote for a party, while identifying marks are those intentionally placed to identify the ballot or the voter. Ballots containing voting marks may be subject to claims, while those with identifying marks to objections. Thereafter, the rejected ballots shall be physically counted. (i) After segregating and counting the ballots, those classified as STRAY, MARKED or REJECTED will be given to the parties revisors for viewing, objections and claims. All other ballots are not subject to objections or claims by the parties. (j) There shall be a tally sheet for multi-slot positions of such number of copies depending on the number of the parties, that will be used for the tallying of the votes as they are counted, through the use of tara or sticks. (k) Handwritten comments, objections and claims shall be submitted immediately after the recount of every clustered precinct and included in the recount report as well as those other documents in the ballot box that may be marked as exhibits for any of the party. (l) In the event the protestant waives the recount of the paper ballots and resort to the decryption and recount of the ballot images and reading/appreciation of the rejected ballots under Section 4(e) of Rule 13, or whenever the Division concerned determines that the integrity of the ballots has been violated or has not been preserved, or are wet and otherwise in such a condition that it cannot be recounted, the Clerk of the Division concerned shall request from the Election Records and Statistics Department (ERSD), the printing of the images of the ballots of the subject precinct stored in the CF card used in the May 13, 2013 elections in the presence of the parties. Printing of the ballot images shall proceed only upon prior authentication and certification by a duly authorized personnel of the Election Records and Statistics Department (ERSD) that the data or the images to be printed are genuine and are not tampered. (m) Appreciating the validity of the votes credited for any party shall be done by the Commission making use of but not limited to the ballot images stored in the original Compact Flash Cards used in the May 10, 2010 Automated National and Local Elections, and not by the Recount Committee. The rules on appreciation of ballots under Section 211 of the Omnibus Election Code shall apply suppletorily when appropriate. (as amended by COMELEC Resolution No. 9164, 9720)

Section 8

Inquiry as to security markings and vital information relative to ballots and election documents. — When a recount of ballots is ordered, and for the guidance of the members of the Recount Committees, the Commission shall give advice and instructions to the committee on the security markings on the ballots and election document. The commission shall likewise designate a technical person who shall assist the Recount Committee in authenticating electronic documents if needed, as well as in transforming the same to a form that can make them observable to the Committee.