Printing of ballots for 2025 polls done by Saturday – Comelec

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

MANILA, Philippines — The printing of ballots for the 2025 midterm elections will be completed by Saturday, according to Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia.

“The printing of ballots will be done tomorrow (Friday) night, we only have reprints,” Garcia said in an ambush interview on Thursday.

Of the 69 million ballots, he said only more or less three million ballots are yet to be printed.

“As I said, by Saturday morning, it (printing) will be done including the reprints,” he added.

Over half of the ballots also underwent manual verification, according to Garcia.

The Comelec tapped the National Printing Office to help South Korean election systems provider Miru to comply with the April 14 deadline of ballot printing.

The printing of ballots encountered several delays as the Comelec was compelled to comply with the Supreme Court’s  (SC) temporary restraining order (TRO) on nuisance candidates whose names the poll body omitted from the ballots.

The printing of over six million ballots had began on Jan. 6, but the Comelec had to discard it, incurring a P132 million in loss, since it did not contain the names of erstwhile nuisance candidate Subair Mustapha, who secured the SC’s TRO on Jan. 14.

The printing of ballots including the name of Mustapha was supposed to be done on Jan. 22.

On Jan. 21, however, the SC issued another TRO which ordered the Comelec to put Norman Mangusin’s name (also known as Francis Leo Marcos) in the ballot, only for him to withdraw his Senate bid, leading to the third printing delay.

The SC then summoned Mangusin over his actions which the high court said “tend to bring the SC’s processes into disrepute or disrespect.”

The Comelec resumed the printing of ballots on January 27.