The Commission on Elections (Comelec) plans to resume printing official ballots for the 2025 elections by Friday or Saturday this week, according to spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco.
“Comelec is targeting to start printing the ballots either on Friday or Saturday,” Laudiangco said during an interview on Balitanghali.
Adjustments After TROs
The resumption comes after the Supreme Court (SC) issued additional temporary restraining orders (TROs) related to the disqualification of certain election aspirants. Despite this, Laudiangco assured that the impact on preparations for the polls remains minimal.
“The new TROs didn’t significantly affect the process since we updated the Election Management System (EMS) after the initial rulings. We simply adjusted the candidate database, added two names as directed by the SC, and generated 1,667 new ballot types,” Laudiangco explained.
Comelec Chairperson George Erwin Garcia previously noted that the poll body would need two to three days to update the database, serialize the official ballots, and prepare approximately 1,600 unique ballot faces if additional TROs were issued.
Previous Delays and Costs
The Comelec began printing the 73 million ballots needed for the May 12 midterm elections on January 6. However, the process was halted due to earlier SC rulings, resulting in the wastage of six million ballots worth approximately ₱132 million.