Comelec to print more than 73M ballots
THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) will print an initial 73 million ballots in preparation for the upcoming 2025 synchronized national, local and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) parliamentary elections.
Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said on Tuesday that of the number, 70 million would be used for the regular midterm elections, 2 million for BARMM and 1 million as test ballots that would be used for an education campaign on the use of the new automated counting machines (ACMs) from November 2024 to Jan. 30, 2025.
Garcia pointed out that the 70 million ballots intended for the regular elections could still increase, depending on the outcome of the still ongoing registration of voters that would end on September 30
INSPECTION Commission on Elections Chairman George Erwin Garcia (center) and Commissioners Ernesto Maceda Jr. and Rey Bulay inspect on Sept. 24, 2024, the machines used to print ballots for next year’s elections. PHOTO BY ISMAEL DE JUAN«The ballots that would be printed correspond to the one ballot per voter ratio,» Garcia added.
Printing of ballots, according to Garcia, would start no later than the second week of December instead of the usual practice of doing it in the first month of the election year to ensure whatever problems that might crop up during the process would not affect the preparations timeline.
Garcia said they were highly impressed with the two units of state-of-the-art new printing machines provided by Miru Systems of South Korea, the winner of the P17.99 billion contract for the supply of 110,000 ACMs that will be used to print the ballots for the 2025 elections.
AdvertisementBundled in the Miru contract are the provisions for 104,345 ballot boxes, 2,200 pieces of servers/laptops and printers, pens and ballot printing, ballot paper for 73,881,894 and ballot verification.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia, (center), Commissioners Ernesto Maceda Jr, and Rey Bulay inspect two new HP printing machines from Miru System Co, Ltd., to be used in producing the ballots, and other accountable and non accountable forms for the 2025 National and Local Elections, (NLE) on Sept. 24,2024. The
