By Ferdinand Patinio/PNA
MANILA — Over 60 percent of the more than 63 million official ballots have been printed at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported on Wednesday.
“Latest data from the Printing Committee show that 38,347,754 ballots have been printed as of March 19, 2019,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a statement.
“This represents 60.24 percent of the 63,662,481 total number of ballots to be printed,” he said.
Jimenez noted that the remaining ballots to be printed are for Regions I (Ilocos Region), II (Cagayan Valley) and the National Capital Region.
He added that the printing is expected to be completed before the start of the Holy Week, which is earlier than the target date of completion set on the last week of April.
“At the current rate, ballot printing may be completed before Holy Week begins. This is earlier than the initial target date of Apr. 25, 2019,” Jimenez said.
The printing of the ballots started on February 9.
There are 61,843,750 registered voters for the May 13 mid-term elections but more than 1.1 million ballots will be used for the Final Testing and Sealing process.
The rest are demonstration ballots allotted for vote-counting machine roadshow and demonstration purposes.
