Comelec again postpones resumption of ballot printing

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO / NOY MORCOSO

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has scrapped its target to resume the printing of official ballots on January 20 to include disqualified candidates who secured temporary restraining orders from the Supreme Court.

“Ballot reprinting cannot happen by Monday,” Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia told reporters via Viber.

Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco also announced the postponement to Monday of the creation of the new trusted build of the election management system (EMS) that was originally set on Saturday at the poll body’s central office.

READ: Comelec to restart ballot printing for May polls on Jan. 22

The trusted build is the final version of the software and firmware used in operating the automated counting machines and consolidation and canvassing system. These will be stored in USB (Universal Serial Bus) drives that will be deposited at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for safekeeping.

Laudiangco said the generation of 1,667 ballot faces or templates and serialization of ballots earlier scheduled on Monday at the Comelec warehouse in Biñan City, Laguna, was reset to Tuesday.

READ: 6 million printed ballots for 2025 polls to be destroyed by Comelec

Add feature

He said updating the Comelec EMS, which is currently ongoing, would take time as it does not have an “add feature.” The EMS would have to be modified first to include such a feature.

“The changes and amendments in the EMS are extensive. It’s not a simple program where we can just add a [candidates’] name, as others think. The EMS has no add feature [which] means, even if we want to add, we can’t do it just that easy. We have to put an add feature before we can add names,” he said.

READ: Dismissed Mayor Jonas Cortes excluded from Comelec ballot template

Printing is targeted to resume by middle of next week, he added.

Delivered for destruction

Meanwhile, the Comelec on Friday transported the first batch of the six million ballots, which were discarded following the Supreme Court’s issuance of the temporary restraining orders favoring one senatorial and four local candidates that the poll body earlier disqualified.

READ: Cortes allies optimistic he will get TRO from Supreme Court

More than 251,0000 ballots stacked in three bales weighing a ton each were fetched by a truck at the National Printing Office in Quezon City for transportation to the Comelec’s other warehouse in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna.