Comelec to recycle unusable ballot papers for 2025 polls

/ 01:43 PM January 17, 2025

Comelec to recycle unusable ballot papers for 2025 polls

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) begins hauling the bundles of unusable ballot papers into their trucks at the National Printing Office in Quezon City on Friday, January 17, 2025. The ballot papers that were rendered useless following a January 14 ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) on “nuisance” candidates will be sent to the Comelec warehouse in Santa Rosa, Laguna. INQUIRER.net/John Eric Mendoza

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is considering recycling ballot papers that were rendered useless following a ruling of the Supreme Court (SC).

Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco said Friday that the poll body began the transfer of the affected ballot papers from the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City to their warehouse in Santa Rosa, Laguna.

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A total of 6 million ballot sheets for the upcoming May elections worth P132 million could be up for destruction and recycling, according to the Comelec.

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Laudiangco said the National Archives of the Philippines is tasked to oversee the recycling process of the unusable ballot papers for the midterm vote.

“We were informed that the old process of micro-shredding won’t work anymore, so what we’ll do is melt all of the dispatched ballots using a solution for direct recycling,” he said in an interview at NPO.

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However, Laudiangco said the Comelec will use new sheets in the printing of fresh ballot papers because the drying and curing process to recycle the unusable ballot papers will take time. He said the poll body could no longer wait for it since its goal is to complete the printing of new ballot papers by January 21.

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“We will use new sets of ballot papers,” Laudiangco said. “It would take some time if we wait for the recycled paper; the printing process needs to continue immediately.”

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The printing of ballot papers for the local and overseas absentee voting and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARRM) polls commenced on January 6 and was completed a few days later.

READ: SC: Cash-strapped poll bets not automatically ‘nuisance’

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However, on January 14, the SC handed out a decision stopping the Comelec from declaring senatorial aspirant Subair Guinthum Mustapha a nuisance candidate.

The SC ruling required the inclusion of Mustapha in the list of senatorial candidates and, therefore, in the ballot papers.

Ballot sheets for local and absentee voters only contain candidates for national positions such as senators, hence, the destruction of the already-printed ballot papers and the printing of new ones reflecting Mustapha’s name is necessary.

The 2.3 million ballot papers for the BARRM parliamentary election will not be affected by the SC ruling – at least for now – because they just contain the names of the 109 candidates vying for the 65 district seats in the region’s parliament.

However, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia noted that issues may arise since every ballot sheet, including those for the BARRM polls, is “serialized.” There is a possibility of confusion in the system of vote-counting machines because if batches of ballot sheets are discarded, the numbers will no longer be in series.

READ: EXPLAINER: What is a nuisance candidate?

Garcia nevertheless said the Comelec’s IT Department is looking into the possibilities to save the voting sheets for the BARMM election.

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The bundles of BARRM parliamentary polls ballot papers were the first ones hauled into Comelec truck even if it was still uncertain if they will be included in the recycling process.

TAGS: 2025 elections, Comelec, Philippine Elections

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