Comelec: Over 24% of target ballots for 2025 polls printed so far
Commission on Elections Chair George Erwin Garcia — INQUIRER file photo / LYN RILLON
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has printed over 17 million ballots so far for the 2025 elections.
In a Viber message to INQUIRER.net, Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said that the poll body produced 17,356,811 ballots as of Friday. This is 24.07 percent of the total 72,107,420 ballots that have to be printed.
The two HP printers produced 9,008,136 ballots so far. These equipment were part of the signed deal with Miru Systems as the poll body’s automated election systems provider.
Meanwhile, Canon printers from the National Printing Office (NPO) printed 8,348,675 ballots.
The poll body is targeting to print over 1.5 million ballots per day.
READ: Comelec ‘partially terminates’ contract with election service provider
Further, Garcia said last January 27 that the Comelec “partially terminated” its contract with Miru System, which was supposed to print the whole ballots.
He explained that the move was necessary to make sure that the ballot printing would be completed on or before the April 14 deadline.
With this development, HP printers are required to print a total of 36,849,373 ballots while the Canon printers are expected to churn out 35,257,542 ballots.
The Comelec recently deputized the local government unit of Quezon City to use the Amoranto Stadium as an additional venue for ballot verification for two months.
Garcia previously said that the lack of space in NPO for the storage of 500 automated counting machines (ACMs) they use for ballot verification prompted the Comelec to seek additional venue.
READ: Comelec to use QC stadium as additional venue for ballot verification
The Comelec began printing ballots last January 6, resulting in approximately 6 million initial ballots. However, the poll body immediately stopped its production after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order.
The Comelec had to follow the high tribunal’s order to include the names of some senatorial aspirants that were initially declared as nuisance candidates by the poll body.
