MANILA – Though it has yet to release the official list of names of aspirants for the May 12, 2019 elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Thursday that it is looking to start the printing of the over 60 million ballots by the middle of January next year.
“We expect to start printing ballots on the third week of January,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a press briefing.
“Ang important lang is that kapag naglabas tayo ng listahan finally e minimal na corrections afterwards (What is important is that when we finally release the list, it would have minimal corrections afterwards),” he added.
The poll body official said they have yet to release the list of official candidates as they having difficulties in cleansing it.
“Wala pa (final list). Nagkakaproblema pa tayo sa pagsasala ng mga candidates. ‘Yung senatorial candidates natin ngayon nasa 140 plus kasi hindi pa nga tapos ‘yung proseso sa iba sa kanila. So nakakaexperience tayo konti delay (There no final list yet. We encounter problems in screening the candidates. The senatorial candidates is now at 140 plus because we have yet to process some of them. So we are experiencing some delay),” he said.
“Ultimately, we were told by our directors involved in the particular stage of this process, it will no affect our timeline… on schedule pa din tayo sa printing,” he added.
Last November, the poll body released the initial list of the aspirants in the forthcoming elections to allow them to check the names that will appear on the official ballot.
