THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) is set to start printing more than 91 million official ballots to be used in the December 2022 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) tomorrow, Wednesday, at the National Printing Office in Quezon City.
In a phone interview, Comelec Chairman George Garcia said the ballot printing is expected to run for a whole month.
“It will start on Wednesday,” said Garcia.
The printing of the ballots was supposed to start yesterday but Garcia said it was moved to Wednesday due to last minute arrangements with the NPO.
“We will sign the Memorandum of Agreement with NPO and I will have to input the secret marking of the ballot,” said Garcia.
The Comelec had earlier said it will print 67,061,585 ballots for barangay voters and another 24,457,363 ballots for SK voters.
In a television interview, Garcia said they want to push through with the ballot printing despite prospects the December poll would be postponed.
“We want to follow our timetable. So, we need to start printing. Otherwise, we may run out of time,” he said.
He reiterated his earlier claim that the official ballots will not be put to waste in the event that the BSKE is postponed.
“The Comelec will just issue a resolution stating that the ballots for 2022 will be the same ballots that we’ll be using in 2023,” said Garcia.
Several bills have been filed in the House of Representatives and the Senate for the postponement of the December BSKE.
