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Philippines

DFA: Distribution of pre-shaded ballots in Singapore embassy 'fake news'

Philippines

DFA: Distribution of pre-shaded ballots in Singapore embassy 'fake news'

By Mario Casayuran

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Brigido Dulay said there is no truth to the reported distribution of pre-shaded ballots to overseas Filipinos voting for the May 2022 elections.

"’Fake news,’’ Dulsy said of the incident in Singapore where an accidentally shaded ballet was given to a Filipino voter.

Appearing before the Senate electoral reforms and people’s participation committee chaired by Senator Imee Marcos, Dulay explained that there were two ballots that appeared to be as one and that the first one was filled up and the second one was placed in a box.

The second one was given to another voter who complained that his ballot already had a pre-shaded space. This later circulated on social media.

It appeared that the ink of the first ballot appeared to have smeared the second ballot, hence the suspicion that it had a pre-shaded space, Dulay said.

Dulay said this was witnessed by an embassy staff and marked the second ballot as ‘’spoiled.’’

The Philippine embassy in Singapore treated this as an ‘’isolated incident.’’

The DFA also said that there are three foreign postings that have not started the electoral process. One of them is the Shanghai consulate which is now on a lockdown because of high Covid-19 cases.

Related Tags

Overseas Absentee Voting pre-shaded ballot Singapore brigido dulay Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) overseas voting

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