Comelec: Printing of manual ballots for May polls begins

FILE PHOTO: Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez. INQUIRER.net/Ryan Leagogo

MANILA, Philippines — The printing of manual ballots for the May 9 elections started on Thursday evening at the National Printing Office (NPO), Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesperson James Jimenez confirmed.

The poll body official said about 60,000 local absentee voting (LAV) ballots will be printed at NPO and that the printing began at exactly 7 p.m.

“Printing has started,” Jimenez told reporters.

These ballots will be allocated for government officials, officials and personnel of police and military, as well as members of the media who registered as local absentee voters.

Printing of manual ballots proceeded despite pending petitions before the Supreme Court to stop Comelec from implementing the revocation of some aspirants’ certificates of candidacy or resolutions declaring certain aspirants as nuisance candidates.

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But Jimenez said this issue will not be a problem.

“LAV ballots are manual ballots, so there will be no preprinted candidate names,” he explained.

Jimenez also said there is “no particular reason” why the ballots for local absentee voters were the first to be printed.

After the printing of ballots for local absentee voters, Jimenez said Comelec will next print around 79,000 manual ballots for overseas voters, as well as 86,000 manual ballots for voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

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