CEBU CITY (PNA) – A Central Visayas election official gave assurances of the integrity of the May 10 elections, saying fake ballots and those with tampered security features will be rejected by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines and the votes cast will not be counted.

Lawyer Veronico Petalcorin, Assistant Regional Director of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) 7 said the general instructions for the May 10 elections state that ballots rejected by the machines will be given back to the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI).

No replacement ballot will be given to voters. Voters who object to this can file a written complaint instead and the complaint will be noted by the BEI.

Petalcorin said the votes cast in the rejected ballot will no longer be counted unless the COMELEC promulgates new rules on what to do with these ballots.

Voters who do not shade the oval spaces properly also run the risk of not getting their votes counted since the machines will not be able to read the shading, Petalcorin said.

He reminded voters to make sure that the oval spaces are fully and properly shaded, and that their ballots are kept clean.

The bar code on the side of the ballot should not be written on or tampered with.

Section 35 of Resolution 8739 or the “General Instructions for the BEI on the voting, counting, and transmission of results in connection with the May 20, 2010 national and local elections,” states that “ballots may be rejected by the PCOS during the scanning.”

If a ballot is rejected, the voter is allowed to re-insert the ballot. If the PCOS still rejects the ballot, the voter has to return the ballot to the BEI Chairman.

The BEI Chairman is required to distinctly mark the back of the ballot as “rejected” and to have all BEI members sign the back and place the ballot inside the envelope designated for rejected ballots.

Lawyer Marchel Sarno, Cebu City North District election oficer, said voters can file a complaint before the BEI or the COMELEC offices if they failed to vote because of reading glitches.