The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it will conduct testing of the ballots and vote-counting machines (VCMs) for the forthcoming May 9, 2022 elections next week, to ensure transparency and integrity of the entire election process.
Comelec commissioner Marlon Casquejo, who chairs the steering committee for the election, said that the National Printing Office has printed out 73.7 percent of the 67,442,616 automated election system ballots for the May 9 national and local elections.
He said “49,737,783 ballots have been printed. Of these, 55.28 percent have undergone verification and 31.996 million or 47.44 percent have been marked as good ballots.”
A total of 31,996,605 has been verified as good ballots, while 5,288,268 are verified as defective ballots that need to be reprinted after some sheets were found with smudges or miscuts. Defective ballots will be shredded and will not be deployed to precincts.
Some 34,725,551 or 51 percent of the total number of official ballots are done with the verification and upon completion of ballot printing, ballots will be transferred to Comelec’s temporary warehouse in Maybunga, Pasig.
“These will be deployed between 20 April to 5 May to local units ahead of the 9 May polls, saying that a voter is only entitled to one ballot in the upcoming May polls,” he said.
He also said they already completed the printing of ballots for local and overseas absentee voting, as well as the ballots that will be used in 63 barangays in North Cotabato intending to be part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Meanwhile, Comelec chairperson Saidamen Pangarungan assured that there will be complete transparency on the preparations for the upcoming polls without affecting the security of the election paraphernalia.