Comelec: Ballot printing now at 53%
DOUBLE-CHECK. Verifiers of the Commission on Elections inspect printed ballots for the May 12 national and local elections, at the Amoranto Sports Complex in Quezon City on Thursday (Feb. 13, 2025). Comelec had already printed some 27 million official ballots since the reprinting process late January, representing 37 percent of a total 72,107,420. (PNA photo by Joan Bondoc)
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has printed more than 50 percent of the ballots for the 2025 elections.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia on Thursday told reporters that the poll body printed 53% of the total ballots, and the deadline is still “March 9 to 10.”
READ: Comelec: 34.2 million ballots for 2025 polls printed, so far
The Comelec earlier said 72,097,420 million ballots should be printed. The two HP Canon printers from Miru Systems need to produce 36,849,878 ballots while the four Canon printers from the National Printing Office should produce 35,247,542 ballots.
Garcia said the ballot verification is improving. However, its deadline may be moved from the April 14 target due to the volume of ballots and lack of manpower.
“We might adjust for the verification. Instead of April 14, we finish it on April 20,” he added.
He also said that moving the deadline would not affect the shipment of ballots across the country, and the ballots for the National Capital Region would be the last to be verified due to its proximity.
“The verified ballots can be deployed as early as the first week of April because that’s the reason why we verified ballots for far-flung areas first,” Garcia explained in Filipino.
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The poll body chief said around 12 million ballots have been validated.
During the verification process at the NPO and Amoranto Stadium, ballots are manually fed into the automated counting machines to check for printing irregularities such as ink smudges or torn pages. The machines will then verify the secret markings and time markings of the ballots.
