The Commission on Elections completes the printing of official ballots for the 2025 midterm elections on Saturday, March 15, 2025 at the National Printing Office in Quezon City. (Photo from the Office of the Comelec chairman)
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Saturday completed the printing of official ballots for the 2025 midterm elections.
The Comelec has printed a total of 68,542,564 ballots.
“Tapos na po tayo sa 68,542,000 na mga balota. Kailan naman matatapos ang ating verification? Katulad ng sinabi natin, ang verification, matatapos April 20 to 21,” Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia said in a press conference.
(We are done with the 68,542,000 ballots. When will we finish the verification? Like what we said, verification will be done by April 20 to 21.)
“At wag mag-alala ang sambayanan pagkat ang part na yun ng April 20-21, yun naman ay mga nasa NCR [National Capital Region] na, yung pinakamalalapit na lugar,” Garcia added.
(Don’t worry because the verification for April 20-21 will be for NCR, or the nearest areas.)
Ballots verification
During the verification of ballots, ballots are manually and automatically checked to see if it contains printing irregularities or if its time and secret markings will be read by the automated counting machines.
Garcia said that almost 50% of the total official ballots are now verified. The poll body is now targeting to finish verifying 1.2 to 1.3 million ballotsa day.
He attributed the completion of printing within its target deadline to the poll body’s strategy of using the four Canon printers from the National Printing Office (NPO) and the two HP printers from Miru Systems, the election service provider and deployment of around 1,000 workers.
Comelec partially terminated its contract with Miru Systems in a bid to fast-track the printing of the ballots.
The provider was supposed to print the total allocation of ballots.
What comes after ballot printing
Meanwhile, Garcia explained that after the ballot printing, they undergo verification at the NPO and Amoranto Stadium in Quezon City. The printing officers then determine which ballots are defective, so they will record them and reprint the day after.
Garcia noted that 2.2 million ballots were rejected. He said that they will be reprinted, and will not be counted on the payment to be made to the NPO and Miru Systems.
Moreover, he said that the packing and shipping committee vacuum seals the ballots and puts them in boxes for safety and protection.
The ballots will be brought to the Comelec warehouse in Sta. Rosa, Laguna where they will be stored before the actual shipping across the country begins.
Comelec is eyeing the deployment of ballots by the second week of April.
“Habang mas malayo, yun din ang inuna sa printing, yun din ang uunahin sa distribution ng balota at ibang election paraphernalia. Kasi yung posibilidad na pwedeng magkaproblema sa barko, eroplano, naka factor in lagi yun,” Garcia said.
(Ballots for far-flung areas were printed first, and they will also be distributed first. We always factor in the possibilities that problems in [shipping through] airplanes and ships may arise.)
Nuisance candidate
The Comelec began printing ballots last January 6, with approximately 6 million ballots as the initial outputs.
However, the poll body immediately stopped printing after the Supreme Court (SC) issued a temporary restraining order where it had to include Subair Mustapha who was initially declared as a nuisance Senate candidate.
The printing, which was supposed to resume on January 22, was delayed again when the SC reversed the decision of Comelec to declare Norman Mangusin, also known as Francis Leo Marcos, as a nuisance candidate.
However, Mangusin’s eventual withdrawal pushed the reschedule of ballot printing for the poll body to generate new ballots without his name.