Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Garcia said around 55 percent or more than half of the 72 million official ballots to be used in the May 2025 midterm polls have been printed.
This accounts for nearly 40 million ballots printed by the National Printing Office in collaboration with Comelec’s poll automation partner, Miru Systems.
The Comelec projected that with the production of 1.7 million ballots each day, the printing process will conclude by March 9 or 10, which is over a month ahead of the electoral body’s initial deadline of April 14.
“We were able to recover the times when we had to stop printing ballots,” he said in a radio interview.
Garcia said the process of verifying the ballots to ascertain which ones are deemed “valid” or capable of being read by the automated counting machines may require additional time.
However, he expressed optimism that the printing of ballots would be completed prior to April 14.
In January of this year, the Comelec suspended the printing of ballots for approximately two weeks following a restraining order issued by the Supreme Court.
“This order mandated the Comelec to include the name of a senatorial candidate, previously classified as a “nuisance,” on the ballots,” Garcia said.