For the May 9 national and municipal elections, the National Printing Office has produced 73.7 percent of the 67,442,616 automated election system ballots necessary by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
During a walk-through at the NPO site in Quezon City, officials informed stakeholders and the media.
According to his report, Commissioner Marlon Casquejo, who oversees the poll body’s steering committee for this election, revealed that 49,737,783 ballots had been printed.
55.28 percent have been verified, and 31.996 million (47.44 percent) have been certified as valid ballots.
On the other hand, 5.288 million ballots, or 7.84 percent, are deemed faulty and must be reissued.
“All the defective ballots will be shred (sic). Don’t worry about that and will not be deployed,” Casquejo said.
He told stakeholders that the Comelec could schedule the shredding of invalid votes to be confident they won’t escape the Comelec.
A total of 43,725, 551 ballots, or nearly 51%, have completed the printing process and are ready to be shipped.
Except for the National Capital Region and Region 3, all ballots have been produced as of March 15.
The NPO plans to begin printing NCR ballots on March 15, despite having only completed 65 percent of the ballots for Region 3.
Comelec prints 73% of ballots for 2022 elections
All manual ballots for overseas and local absentee voting and 63 barangays in North Cotabato that will only vote for national offices have been produced by the NPO.
Meanwhile, 1,288,001 of the 1,401,205 ballots needed for final testing and sealing have been printed, accounting for 91.9 percent of the total.
790,739 ballots, or 56.43 percent, are valid, while 23,074 ballots, or 1.65 percent, are defective and will need to be reissued. They reflect the votes that have been confirmed in 53.08 percent of the total votes cast.
“As to the FTS ballots di pa rin tayo tapos, we still have around 41 percent need to be printed for our FTS ballots. Continuous pa rin ’yung ating VCM kitting kasi VCM kitting natin or production is dependent on the printed FTS,” Casquejo said.
“Pasensiya na kung di kaagad na-open ’yung ating NPO for observation because of the COVID pandemic or surge and then we need to catch up with the printing of the FTS.
“We still have around 41 percent, 41 percent of the VCM has not been produced hinahabol namin FTS ballots kasi marami pang di na-print or dumadaan pa siya sa reprinting.”
When the infection rates dropped, Casquejo said, they printed the ballots, but the FTS ballots were left behind, so they had to set aside one machine for the FTS.
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