The Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported that it has completed printing over 68.5 million official ballots for this year’s midterm elections, meeting its self-imposed deadline.
With the ballots now printed, Comelec Chairman George Garcia shared that the next steps will involve final testing and sealing, which will continue through mid-April.
“If there are any defective ballots—whether one or two or more—the National Printing Office will immediately reprint them. The next phase is to deploy the ballots and machines, which will be sent out to various regions across the country,” Garcia said.
Around two million ballots were deemed defective and needed to be reprinted.
The reprinting process is already underway and is expected to be completed within a few days.
“We are slowly reprinting them… hopefully, we’ll be able to reprint the two million. It only takes about a day, but reprinting isn’t as simple as regular printing—it requires precision,” Garcia explained.
“The reprinting needs to be done for every precinct in each town or city. Again, this is not an issue,” he added.
After the final testing and sealing, the ballots will be transported to Comelec’s warehouse in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, for safekeeping.
“Just because they’ve been printed doesn’t mean it’s done. In coordination with the Philippine National Police, all trucks transporting ballots from Sta. Rosa to the port or airport will be escorted. We have monitoring at the operations center, linked to real-time updates on the cargo’s location,” Garcia emphasized.
Comelec also urged voters to be cautious when shading their ballots, reminding them that each individual will only receive one.
The commission reminded the public not to draw on or take pictures of a shaded ballot.