Comelec: Printing of Caraga, Batanes, absentee voting ballots done

 

MANILA, Philippines — The printing of 2025 midterm election ballots for the Caraga region in Mindanao, Batanes and absentee voting has been completed, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia announced on Thursday.

These are among the more than three million ballots which had already been printed by Comelec when its production resumed on Monday.

Also included in this number are all the ballots for local and overseas absentee voting.

“The printing of ballots with national and local candidates has already begun,” Garcia said in an ambush interview. 

“The [ballots] for overseas absentee voting and local absentee voting are not that much—we have already printed them all,” he also said.

To date, he said the printing of ballots for the Bicol region is ongoing. 

Meanwhile, Garcia said the ballots for Metro Manila will be printed by April.

The ballot printing process kicked off on  January 6, 2025 but has since been delayed thrice due to Supreme Court’s temporary restraining orders which ordered the Comelec to add the names of senatorial aspirants it previously declared as nuisance candidates.

In line with this,  the National Printing Office (NPO) will help South Korean election systems provider Miru in fulfilling the printing of more than 72 million ballots.

The Comelec’s printing committee has said that Miru’s two HP printers are expected to print 36,244,762 ballots while four of NPO’s Canon printers should churn out the remaining 35,881,871 ballots.