Comelec on track to meet April 14 ballot printing deadline

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A WEEK after restarting the printing of official ballots for the May 2025 polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday expressed confidence it could meet its April 14 self-imposed deadline to complete the task.

In an interview, Comelec chief George Garcia said the current pace of the ballot printing indicates that both the National Printing Office (NPO) and the poll body’s service provider, Miru Systems, would be able to meet the target completion date.

“So far, it looks like we shall be able to meet the April 14 deadline, and not just the printing itself but the verification of ballots as well,” said Garcia.

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“Currently, the numbers look good and it appears like we can achieve the April 14 deadline,” he added.

As of February 4, the Comelec reported that 11,780,626 ballots have been printed. This includes 5,806,965 ballots printed by Miru and 5,973,661 ballots produced by the NPO.

The running total means that 16.34 percent of the 72,107,420 ballots have been printed.

The Comelec said 60,326,794 ballots will still need to be printed until April 14. Miru still needs to print 31,042,913 ballots, while the NPO must be able to print 29,282,881 ballots.

Garcia said their daily output exceeds their initial estimate of 1.5 million ballots printed per day.

“On a daily basis, we are able to print 1.8 million ballots. Hopefully, we can even reach 2 million ballots per day,” said the poll chief.

But while the Comelec is satisfied with the printing of ballots, he said the verification process is running slow.

“We think the verification is running slow. It is being left behind by the printing speed,” said Garcia.

He said this is why the commission is considering hiring around 250 to 300 individuals to increase their roster of 800 verifiers.

Garcia said they are also considering tapping the nearby National Irrigation Administration and the Amoranto Stadium to host the voting machines used for the verification of ballots.

Garcia also said the poll body plans to regulate election survey publications to protect candidates as well as legitimate survey firms from those considered “fly-by-night” operators.

“We believe that even survey firms would want to have this regulation so that we can weed out fly-by-night survey firms,” said Garcia.

“We also want to protect candidates against fly-by-night survey firms, whose only purpose is to sell them survey results supposedly favoring them,” he added.

He said the regulation of surveys aims to reduce their influence on how voters choose their candidates.

Garcia said election surveys should be subject to Comelec guidelines and rules laid down by the Supreme Court. 

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