Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Provincial canvassing starts Wednesday morning By Nicolas C. Delfin
THE Provincial Commission on Elections (Comelec) did not receive a single Certificate of Canvass Tuesday, therefore, Comelec Supervisor Jessie Suarez declared a recess of canvassing proceedings.
"As soon as we received the election certificate of canvass from different town and cities all over the province, we will slowly and surely canvass and tally the votes," Suarez said.
The canvassing was formally convened at about 6 p.m. yesterday at the Negros Occidental Barangay Center Office at the Provincial Administrative Building.
As of press time Tuesday, there were already ballots and election returns coming from the Comelec Registrars in Sagay City and San Enrique town but none have submitted their formal certificate of canvass, yet.
According to Suarez, the canvassing would take 72 hours depending on the availability of the election certificate of canvass coming from the 19 municipalities and cities in Negros Occidental.
"Some towns were already done in their respective local canvassing and I hope that they would endorsed all the ballots, elections returns and certicate of canvass here so we can start as soon as possible," Suarez said.
Asked if the delay might have been caused by reports of irregularities such as in Valladolid town, Suarez said "there were no irregularities but, maybe, most of the localities and cities are not procedurally done yet."
"In the case of Valladolid, it wasn't that much of a problem as I have personally settled what went wrong after assigning an acting-Comelec Registrar in the area," he said.
