Guidelines for 2010 Elections

This guidelines were released by the Comelec last Tuesday. The Seven-Point Policy Directions, contained in en banc Resolution No. 8698, were approved upon the recommendation of the Comelec Advisory Council, a body created by Republic Act 9369 or the Poll Automation Law to recommend the most appropriate, secure, applicable, and cost-cutting effective technology to be applied in the AES, in whole or in part, at that specific form in time.

The Seven-Point Policy Directions are:

1. The ballot box shall have only one compartment and rejected ballots will be returned to the voter, who will in turn give it to the Board of Election Inspectors.
2. The voter will not be issued a replacement ballot.
3. A vote is considered valid if the mark or shade on the oval reaches the threshold of 50 percent.
4. The ballot shall contain the name of the candidate, stage name/nickname and political party affiliation. For every position, each candidate shall be in sequential order beginning with the number "1" in accordance with their alphabetical listing.
5. Party-list groups shall be listed on the ballot by their acronym. Each party-list group shall also be assigned a number which shall be in sequential order beginning with number "1" in accordance with their alphabetical listing.
6. The procurement of ballot boxes shall be through any of the applicable alternative methods of procurement authorized under RA 9184.
   
7. To expedite the manufacturing process, the contract may be multi-sourced, provided such fact of multi-sourcing shall be disclosed in the Request for Proposal.