Comelec to reprint over 300K defective ballots

MANILA – There are over 300,000 defective ballots that will be reprinted, an official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Thursday.

Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said a total of 372,878 ballots did not pass the thorough testing on the election documents.

In a message to the media, Garcia said the number is 0.58 percent or 372,878 of the total number of the 67,442,616 official ballots that have been printed for both local and overseas voters.

The rejected ballots are those with smudge, not perfectly cut, among others.

“We will first complete the reprinting and the printing of other forms, then the destruction will follow. We will issue a notice,” Garcia said.

Meanwhile, the Comelec also released the number of registered voters in the country by sex.

Data from the Records and Statistics Division show that of the total 65,721,230 registered voters–33,644,237 are females while 32,076,993 are males.

The region with the biggest number of registered voters is Region 4-A (Calabarzon) with 9,192,205, followed by the National Capital Region with 7,301,393.

The area with the least number of registered voters is the Cordillera Administrative Region with 1,077,900.