Ballot printing now 92% complete – Comelec

Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said some 61 million official ballots have already been printed at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City. (File Photo: COMELEC/Facebook)

By Ferdinand Patinio, Philippine News Agency

MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is close to completing the printing of the official ballots for the May 12 midterm elections.

Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said some 61 million official ballots have already been printed at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City.

“We are now at around 92 percent complete with the ballot printing,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Garcia also reported that there is still much work needed, particularly on the verification of the ballots as only 36 million have passed the process.

“We must be able to improve our verification process. On the average, we must be able to verify around 1.2 million ballots on a single day,” he added.

During verification, the official ballots must pass the manual checking as well as the automated counting machines (ACMs).

With ballot printing nearing completion, Garcia said they are looking to shift their personnel from printing operations to verification of ballots.

“We will use our personnel assigned for printing for the verification of the ballots,” he said.

The Comelec chief further said they will open more space at the NPO once printing has been completed.

“We need to clear more space in the NPO so that we will have room for additional machines and personnel to do the verification,” he added.

A total of 72,097,420 ballots are needed in the forthcoming polls.