Comelec resets printing of ballots

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has rescheduled the start of the printing of the official ballots for next year’s midterm polls to Jan. 6, 2025.

The ballot printing was supposed to commence this month.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia said the poll body must be able to print over 70 million official ballots within a tight schedule.

“We are anticipating, only as a worst-case scenario, that we may not be able to accomplish our desired number of printed ballots on a daily basis,” Garcia said. “Our projection is the printing will run for 77 days, which means there must be, more or less, one million ballots printed per day.”

As a back-up plan, Garcia said four printers of the National Printing Office (NPO) have been placed on standby.

This is aside from the two HP PageWide Advantage 2200 machines provided by Miru Systems, the service provider for the 2025 elections.

The machines are being kept at the NPO office in Quezon City.

Garcia said the Comelec would first assess the performance of the Miru printers before deciding to use the NPO printers.

The two HP printers were turned over to the Comelec by Miru in October.