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 "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. Bundled 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. Miru Systems also signed a memorandum of agreement with Comelec and the NPO for the printing of the 73 million ballots. Under the agreement, Miru will lend NPO brand new state-of-the-art printing machines that will be used for ballot printing. Said printing machines from Miru are capable of churning out 1 million ballots each per day or 2 million ballots a day. But Garcia said that each machine would print only 500,000 ballots or a total of 1 million a day to ensure the quality of the ballots. "We should not rush it. That is why we are starting the printing early to maintain a high standard of quality control on the ballots to be printed," he said. Garcia said every ballot and ACM is "precinct specific," meaning it cannot be used in another precinct or fed into another counting machine. He said the ballots also contain watermarks, including secret marks known "only to me and the director of the National Printing Office."