Still smarting from “a near accidental disqualification” from the coming party-list elections, the Alliance for Rural Agrarian Reconstruction (ARARO) Thursday demanded an assurance from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that similar acts of inadvertence will not be repeated in the printing of ballots and counting of votes in the May 10 partylist polls.

Appearing at the weekly Usaping Balita News Forum, ARARO executive officer Elmer Cainday said all candidates joining the elections should be given final blueprints of the ballots prior to the printing in order for them to determine whether or not their names were included.

“This will preclude a repetition of what happened to ARARO and the six other partylist organizations that were inadvertently excluded in the list of qualified participants in the May polls,” Cainday said told reporters during the forum held at Serye Café in Quezon City.

Considering that the Comelec is pressed for time in preparing for the first automated elections in the country, Cainday warned that as there is a “huge possibility” that grave printing errors might be committed.

“The May polls will be the first time that names of candidates will be printed in the ballots. Mistakes could happen and these may vary from misspelling to omission of names of qualified candidates,” Cainday said. “Unintentional disqualification is fatal error.”

ARARO, a party-list organization backed by more than 100 rural-based and urban poor groups, nearly lost the elections even before actual voting could h take place. The group has been excluded in the list of party-list election participants that was contained in Resolution 8744 issued by the Comelec last week.

The poll body later handed down another resolution that added ARARO in the list of candidates but this took place shortly after leaders of ARARO affiliated organizations threatened to stage mass protest actions in all Comelec offices throughout the country.

Cainday thanked the Comelec for correcting itself although he disclosed that ARARO leaders remained apprehensive that a similar incident of unintentional mistake might occur in the printing of the ballots.