Comelec starts printing of ballots for 2025 polls

The printing of 73 million ballots for the mid-term elections and the first parliamentary polls in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) begins today

- MAYEN JAYMALIN

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia said printing of ballots is estimated to take 77 days, from this afternoon until April 14.

"We want to make sure that as much as possible at least 800,000 to 900,000 or one million at the most ballots will be printed per day," Garcia told reporters.

According to him, the Comelec has a priority list of ballots to be printed, including those for around 11,000 overseas voters in countries not allowed to use internet voting, and for the BARMM parliamentary elections.

He said the Comelec had completed the Election Management System (EMS) containing the final list of all candidates participating in next year's elections.

"It is not allowed to just change the EMS. We can subtract (candidate names), but we cannot just add more to it," Garcia said, noting that the Comelec had removed over 300 nuisance bets and those who were disqualified from the national and local elections.