Section 15Sec./Art. 15

Counting Procedure. a) The counting of votes shall be conducted in the central counting center within each municipality of province as designated by the Commission;

b) The ballots shall be counted by precinct in the order of their arrival at the central counting center. The Election Officer shall log the sequence of arrival of the ballot boxes and indicate their condition. There after, the Board shall, in the presence of the watchers, open the ballot box, count the number of ballots and verify if it tallies with the number of voters who voted as recorder in the List of Voters with Voting Records. If there are excess ballots, the Board shall proceed in the manner provided in Section 207 of the Omnibus Election Code;

c) The Chairman of the Board of Election Inspectors or any authorized member thereof shall then retrieve the valid ballots from the ballot box. Under the supervision of the Election Officer of the municipality, the Chairman of the Board or any authorized member thereof shall feed the ballots one at a time into the machine without interruption until all the votes are counted. All proceedings shall be public: however, only the Election Officer authorized to operate the machine and the members of the Board of Election Inspectors of the precinct the ballots of which are being counted may physically touch the ballots;

d) After the ballots of the precincts have been counted, the Chairman of the Board of Election Inspectors or any member thereof shall, in the presence of the watchers, publicly read and announce the total number of votes obtained by each candidate based on the tape printout. The Election Officer shall print four (4) copies of the results all of which shall be authenticated by him and the members of the Board of Election Inspectors. The tape printout shall be distributed as follows:

1. The first copy to the Election Officer;

2. The second copy to the authorized representative of the majority party;

3. The third copy to the authorized representative of the dominant minority party; and

4. The fourth copy to be deposited inside the ballot box.

e) The ballots shall then be returned to the ballot box, which shall be locked, sealed and delivered to the municipal treasurer for safekeeping. The treasurer shall immediately provide the Election Officer and the Commission with a record of the serial numbers of the ballot boxes and corresponding metal seals.