The Commission on Elections will start the printing of ballots on the second week of January next year, but the poll body has yet to release the official list of the names of aspirants for the May 12, 2019 elections.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said it will start the printing of the over 60-million ballots by the middle of January next year, as soon as the final list of senatorial bets and party-list are approved by the poll body.
“The Comelec is trying to avoid corrections in the printing of ballots and it is important that final list of candidates is released,” Jimenez said.
He admitted, though, that they have yet to release the list of official candidates as they are encountering difficulties in cleansing the list of ‘undesirables.’
“There is no final list yet because we continue to encounter problems in screening the candidates. The senatorial candidates are now at 140 plus because we have yet to process some of them. So we are experiencing some delay,” he said.
The Comelec official, however, assured the public that the delay will not adversely the timeline of the midterm elections.
Last November, the Comelec has disqualified more than 20 senatorial candidates and more will eventually be disqualified before December 28, as most of the 152 individuals who filed their certificate of candidacy for senator did not meet the prerequisites or are capable to sustain their election campaign.
A total of 152 individuals filed their COCs for senator for the 2019 elections, according to Jimenez.
