The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will soon release the ballot faces for the May 9 synchronized national and local elections.
Elaiza David, director of the Comelec – Education and Information Department (EID), said there are three ballots with different sizes to be used in the upcoming polls.
The longest ballot, measuring 30 inches, will be used in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Ballots for non-BARMM areas, on the other hand, will measure 26 inches while the size of the ballots for overseas absentee voters will be 25 inches.
“The longest is BARMM since their names are longer and they have more candidates,” she said in a virtual press briefing Monday.
David said the front side of the ballot will have the national and local positions for both BARMM and non-BARMM voters while party-list candidates can be found at the back of the ballot.
Overseas ballots will only contain names for national positions such as president, vice president, senators, and party-list groups.
Based on the latest data from the poll body, there are around 1.7 million overseas voters.
As of January 11, the tentative list of candidates has 10 candidates for president, nine for vice president, 64 for senators, and 178 party-list groups.
David said they will have a virtual walkthrough of the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City where the ballots will be printed today (Tuesday).
“We will have another announcement regarding when the printing will start but it is going to be after the walkthrough,” the Comelec official added.