(INQUIRER file photo)
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Saturday finished printing the last batch of the 67.4 million ballots for the May 9 national and local elections ahead of the target date.
According to the Comelec, the last batch was printed at around 10:28 a.m. Ballot printing started on January 23 and was targeted to be finished on April 25.
The latest batch of printed ballots will go through the verification process, according to the poll body.
LOOK: The last of the 67.4M official ballots for the #NLE2022 was printed at approximately 10:28 AM today, April 2.
COMELEC finished printing ahead of schedule. Target end date is April 25.#VoteSAFEPilipinas #BumotoKa #2022NLE pic.twitter.com/wlgPE44Yd6
— COMELEC (@COMELEC) April 2, 2022
There are 319,138 overall “quarantined” ballots and 178,990 defective ballots as of Saturday, Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said in a Viber message to reporters.
Ballots are quarantined or set aside when a ballot from the same batch or group was found to have problems or defects.
Defective ballots will be shredded.