Comelec starts printing of ballots for 2025 polls

MANILA, Philippines — The printing of 73 million ballots for the midterm elections and the first parliamentary polls in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) begins today.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia said printing of ballots is estimated to take 77 days, from this afternoon until April 14.

“We want to make sure that as much as possible at least 800,000 to 900,000 or one million at the most ballots will be printed per day,” Garcia told reporters.

According to him, the Comelec has a priority list of ballots to be printed, including those for around 11,000 overseas voters in countries not allowed to use internet voting, and for the BARMM parliamentary elections.

He said the Comelec had completed the Election Management System (EMS) containing the final list of all candidates participating in next year’s elections.

“It is not allowed to just change the EMS. We can subtract (candidate names), but we cannot just add more to it,” Garcia said, noting that the Comelec had removed over 300 nuisance bets and those who were disqualified from the national and local elections.

He added the Comelec will proceed with the printing of ballots despite pending appeals filed by some of the disqualified candidates before the Supreme Court (SC).

Garcia stressed that the Comelec already afforded due process to those with pending disqualification cases and thus it should not stop the Comelec from proceeding with their scheduled election activities unless ordered by the High Court.

“We have to proceed with the ballot printing because time is of the essence. After the completion of the printing by April 14, we have less than a month to distribute the election paraphernalia,” he said.

The poll chief said he already sent a letter informing the High Court that is set to start the printing of the ballots. Garcia said the Comelec will take the appropriate action depending on the orders of the SC.

However, he admitted that in the last elections, the Comelec was unable to comply with the SC order because the printing of ballots was already ongoing.

Absentee voting

More government employees can vote ahead of the elections with the Comelec now looking to expand the coverage of local absentee voting (LAV).

“We want to expand so that more government employees can avail of the local absentee voting,” Garcia said.

“Especially in the health sector. They have to be able to vote early because they are deployed during the election,” he added.

Garcia said other agencies of the government may send a letter to Comelec requesting for their employees who have duties during the election to avail of LAV.

Eligible to avail of LAV are government officials and employees, including members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, as well as members of the media, media practitioners including their technical and support staff (media voters) who are duly registered voters.

Garcia, however, stressed that those availing of LAV can only cast their vote for national positions such as senator and party-list.

Comelec previously announced that it intends to automate the conduct of LAV for the first time to expedite the election process.

Garcia said the ballots would be mass-fed to the machines immediately following the closing of the LAV voting hours.

Comelec will be deploying vote counting machines in various sites where the LAV will be conducted.