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Official ballots for May polls yet to be printed 


Official ballots for use on the May 9 polls have yet to be printed, as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) sees another delay due to a correction on the ballot face.

In an interview, lawyer Genevieve Guevarra, head of the printing committee, said they are due to start on printing the actual ballots for voters' use either Wednesday night or on Thursday.

"Baka this afternoon, tonight, or early tomorrow, kasi we have been informed na may revision sa ballot face," she told GMA News Online in a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon.

She added that the correction would be coming from the Comelec's rented warehouse in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, where the election management system—the so-called brain of the automated polls—is being loaded.

Minor correction

She said they stopped printing on Tuesday after seeing that a correction needed to be made. At that tiem, they printed 39 ballots for final testing and sealing.

In a separate interview, Comelec chairman Andres Bautista said Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago's political party, People's Reform Party, was not indicated beside her name in the ballot face used at the start of printing on Monday.

"Merong ano lang, 'yung sa pangalan ni Sen. Santiago, napansin n'yo ba wala 'yung party? Pero ngayon tuloy na," he told reporters in an ambush interview.

Because of this, the printing was halted on Tuesday and resumed on Wednesday, but only for ballots that will be used for demonstrations.

Bautista did not reply when asked if the printing already involves official ballots.

Demo ballots

Guevarra said that since resuming on Wednesday morning, they have printed about 70,00 ballots for demonstration.

They need to print 750,000 pieces of such ballot, she added.

She also told GMA News Online they will first print 1,189,350 ballots for overseas absentee voting that will use the automated system, which they expect to accomplish "this week."

The said ballots are expected to be shipped out of the country starting Apr. 5.

Asked about the 54.3 million ballots for local voters, she said, "Next week na po 'yung start ng local."

Guevarra also told GMA News Online that they have received the "complete" project of precincts, which includes information like polling places, assigned clustered precincts in each one, and the number of registered voters in them.

This is needed to determine the number of ballots needed for specific precincts.

"Opo, meron na po kaming natanggap na mas maayos [na project of precincts]. Kumpleto na po 'yun," she said.

Comelec, along with the National Printing Office, needs to finish printing a total of nearly 57 million ballots by April 25. These include 223,611 ballots for manual polls, which will be used for local absentee voting and some places overseas.

Ballot sizes

The ballot for local polls, which make up majority of what needs to be printed, comes at 8.5 inches by 20 inches, shorter than the ballots in previous elections.

Earlier, Bautista expressed confidence that they will meet the deadline, given that the ballots are shorter.

Meanwhile, ballots for automated overseas absentee voting are 15.1 inches long, containing only national positions.

Ballots for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are two inches longer that the regular ones for local elections. It includes Arabic translations on the headers that indicate positions that will be voted for. —KBK, GMA News

Tags: eleksyon2016
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