PRINTERS in the National Printing Office (NPO) will start rolling to produce the 73 million official ballots for the May 2025 national and local polls by the middle of December, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday.
The Comelec made the announcement during the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for the provision of printing services for next year’s elections between the poll body, NPO, and South Korean firm, Miru Systems.
“Hopefully, we can start printing by the second week of December,” said Comelec chairman George Garcia in an interview with reporters.
He said he believes that the projected start of ballot printing is attuned to the preparations of the Comelec with regards to the list of official candidates.
“Before the end of November, we commit to resolve all nuisance candidates cases so that we can weed out the nuisance candidates and determine who deserve to be allowed to run,” said Garcia.
For the printing of official ballots, the Comelec said its service provider, Miru Systems, will deploy two units of the modern printing equipment called HP PageWide Advantage 2200.
The twin printers shall be stationed at the NPO, where the ballot printing shall commence.
“We will likely print half a million ballots in each printer per day or one million per day,” said Garcia.
He said having an early start in the ballot printing will allow the Comelec to ensure the quality of the official ballots.
“We must have a higher quality control over the ballots to be printed,” said Garcia.
