Comelec to resume ballot printing on Jan 22 ‘at all costs’

Commission on Elections Chairperson George Garcia  INQUIRER.net file photo / NOY MORCOSO

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will resume the reprinting of ballots on Wednesday, Jan. 22, “at all costs,” its chief, George Erwin Garcia, said on Monday.

“At all costs, we have to print the ballots — whether it’s in the morning, in the afternoon, we have to proceed with the printing of ballots on Wednesday,” Garcia said during the sidelines of the “trusted build” process of the automated counting machines conducted at Palacio del Gobernador.

The Comelec conducted a “trusted build” to allow the addition of new candidates to the ballots in the automated election management system.

This trusted build — which refers to the process of assembling the overall program that will govern the entire automated election management system — is necessary for Comelec to comply with the Supreme Court (SC) decision, which ordered the poll body to add the name of an erstwhile nuisance candidate and other disqualified local aspirants to the midterm poll ballots.

On Jan. 14, the SC blocked Comelec’s move to declare Senate hopeful Subair Guinthum Mustapha as a nuisance candidate.

READ: Group urges Comelec to return to manual voting to avoid ballot wastage

Mustapha was then included in the list of senatorial candidates despite the commencement of the printing of the ballot last Jan. 6 which did not bear his name.

Because of this, the Comelec discarded six ballots for the upcoming midterm polls without Mustapha’s name, causing a P132 million financial loss to the Comelec.

READ: Comelec to recycle unusable ballot papers for 2025 polls

After the trusted build, the Comelec will produce new ballot faces on Tuesday which contain the names of Mustapha and other local aspirants favored by the SC.

READ: SC order on nuisance bet affects Sotto, Quiboloy’s ballot numbers

Only when these two processes—the trusted build and production of ballot faces—were conducted could the Comelec commence the printing of new ballots.

“Our time is now running out,” Garcia said. “The patience of the public may also soon run out.”