The Commission on Elections will start printing 73 million official ballots for the 2025 elections by the second week of December, poll body chairman George Garcia said.
Garcia made the announcement during the signing of a memorandum of agreement for the provision of printing services for next year’s elections between the Comelec, National Printing Office, and South Korean firm Miru Systems.
At least P1.6-billion from the existing bundled contract of Miru Systems – the official election provider for the 2025 polls – has been allocated for the printing of the ballots, Garcia said.
According to Ken Cho, Miru vice president for overseas sales, his company will be lending to the NPO brand new machines which uses the latest technology from industry leader HP.
“Hopefully, we can start printing by the second week of December because substitution of candidates is prohibited. If they file their candidacy on October 1-8, replacement is allowed only if the reason is death or disqualification,” Garcia said.
“We will likely print half a million ballots in each printer per day or one million per day,” he added.
Garcia also said that some “unique” features of the ballots will be printed, including the “secret markings” they included.
He said the ballots are “precinct specific,” which means that they can’t be used by other precincts and other vote-counting machines.
“We must have a higher quality control over the ballots to be printed,” Garcia added.
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