Comelec: 55% of ballots for polls already printed
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair George Erwin Garcia on Saturday said about 55 percent of the 72 million official ballots to be used in the May 12 midterm polls have been printed.
In an interview on radio station dzRH, Garcia said almost 40 million ballots have been printed by the National Printing Office and Comelec’s poll automation partner Miru Systems Joint Venture.
He estimated that with 1.7 million ballots being printed every day, printing would be completed by March 9 or 10, more than a month before the poll body’s original April 14 deadline.
“We were able to recover somewhat the times when we had to stop printing ballots,” the chair said.
Garcia said the verification of the ballots to determine which of them are “good,” or would be readable by the automated counting machines, might take a longer time, but he said he was optimistic the process would be finished before April 14.
Last January, the Comelec halted printing for about two weeks after a senatorial candidate it earlier declared as a “nuisance” obtained a restraining order from the Supreme Court, which directed the poll body to include the candidate’s name in the ballots.
Four of the 67 senatorial candidates have since withdrawn, namely former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson on Jan. 16, Francis Leo Marcos on Jan. 23, incumbent Agri party list Rep. Wilbert Lee on Feb. 10 and social media personality Dr. Willie Ong on Feb. 21.
Garcia said the names of Lee and Ong, which were still on the ballots when Comelec resumed printing last Jan. 27, would remain but votes for them would be declared as stray.
Soces still required
Candidates who withdrew during the campaign period still have to file their statements of contributions and expenditures (Soces) by June 11 in accordance with election regulations.
According to the poll body’s political finance affairs department, all official candidates, political parties and party list groups shall file their Soces whether or not they won the elections; neither incurred expenses nor received any contribution; did not pursue or continue their campaign; self-funded their campaign; or withdrew their candidacy, unless the withdrawal was done officially before the start of the campaign period.
