Other than a crisis of confidence in Comelec and computers, the approaching elections cannot help but suggest a nightmare in logistics.

Sixty million ballots, each measuring 25 to 27 inches long, weighing 25 kg per bundle of 1,000 pieces each for every “cluster” of three precincts, are to be transported over land and water to all the nooks and crannies of the archipelago. What happens if the boats capsize and sink, as they often do? Or the trucks get hijacked, ambushed, set on fire?

Before they are shipped out, the ballots are vacuumed for a finishing touch. Then they are packed and tied into bundles, but the bottom could fall out and drop ten fathoms into the sea.

Just as worrisome is the visible lack of tight and tighter security in the National Printing Office. Visitors are appalled at the absence of closed-circuit TV cameras that could keep an eye on unauthorized persons, interlopers and other sneaky types.

When all is said and done, and much as we want to maintain an air of optimism – “God bless the Philippines!”

as a lady justice has been heard to intone – one big bad nightmare at the end of the day is all about what happens to the excess ballots.

Much as everyone loves an election, the turnout will not be 100 percent.

So where do the blank ballots end up, and in whose hands, and are those hands lily-white, or stained with dirty but nonindelible ink?