THE National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City is set to start rolling its printers today for the printing of the 73 million official ballots for this year’s national, local, and Bangsamoro parliamentary elections.
In an interview, Elections chairman George Garcia said the ballot printing will continue until April 14, the deadline set for the printing of the ballots to be used during the May 12 elections.
Garcia said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is looking at producing around 800,000 to one million ballots per day to meet the deadline.
“We have to proceed with the printing of the ballots because we have a very tight timeline. We only have 77 days to print the ballots. Again, by April 14, we have to complete everything,” Garcia said.
He said the poll body is ready to print the official ballots since they have completed the list of candidates, and the precinct-specific ballot faces that will be printed.
Garcia said ballots need for areas farthest from Metro Manila will be prioritized in the printing of ballots.
“First in line for printing are overseas voters that won’t use internet voting, to be followed by those for Bangsamoro, wherein two ballots will be used,” he said.
Earlier, two HP PageWide Advantage 2200 machines were turned over by the Comelec’s service provider, Miru Systems, and are now stationed in the NPO office in Quezon City.
In addition, the Comelec has also asked the NPO to place on standby its four printers to ensure that the deadline can be met.
“We will see in the first 7 to 10 days from the January 6 start of printing the performances of the two (HP) machines,” Garcia earlier said.
LOCAL ABSENTEE VOTING
Garcia also said that the poll body is looking to expand the coverage of the Local Absentee Voting (LAV) for the May polls to include more government personnel who are deployed on Election Day.
“We want to expand it. We want more government employees to be able to avail of the local absentee voting,” he said, adding that “we want to allow them to vote since they are deployed during Elections Day.”
The LAV is a scheme wherein eligible individuals are allowed to vote days prior to Election Day in designated places of voting.
Covered by the LAV are government officials and employees, personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP), and members of the media.
Garcia called on interested government offices to send official requests for those looking to be included in the LAV.
“To fellow government agencies [whose employees] are working on Election Day, please send your requests to us so that we can include your personnel in the LAV,” he said.
“This will allow their personnel to still exercise their rights to vote even if they are working on Election Day,” he added.
There were 84,358 registered LAV voters during the May 2022 polls. Of the figure, there were 74,846 actual voters for a LAV voter turnout of 88.72 percent.
In a related development, the Rizal provincial police office (PPO) held last January 3 the Joint Peace and Security Coordinating Center (JPSCC) meeting in preparation for the 2025 elections.
Col. Felipe Maraggun, Rizal PPO director, and lawyer Arnulfo Pioquito, Comelec provincial supervisor, led the meeting at the Rizal PPO Conference Room. Also present were election officers, chiefs of police, and representatives from the Philippine army, and Bureau of Fire Protection assigned to each municipality and provincial support units.
Discussed during the meeting were the deployment of troops and coordination among local officials, watchmen, and other authorities who will be present before, during and after the 2025 polls.
A command control and help center will also be designated in areas where voters will cast their votes. – With Christian Oineza
