The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has resumed printing official ballots for the historic October 13 Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE), aiming to complete the process by mid-September.
Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said around 2.25 million ballots need to be printed for the first parliamentary polls in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
“We will print 2.25 million ballots. With these two machines each day, let’s say they can print up to 300,000 ballots per day… That’s why we gave it until Sept. 15 to verify the ballots that need to be printed,” Garcia stated in a press briefing Thursday.
The breakdown of ballots includes: Tawi-Tawi (252,958), Basilan (228,179), Special Geographic Area (115,533), Maguindanao del Sur (439,311), Maguindanao del Norte (520,285), and Lanao del Sur (695,669).
Verification of printed ballots also began Thursday.
“We have a lot of people, especially focusing on verification,” Garcia stressed. “We don’t want many bad ballots.”
Once verified, ballots will be turned over to the Packing and Shipping Committee starting Friday, with deployment—alongside other election materials—scheduled to begin on September 5.
The Comelec earlier printed several test batches, including field test ballots (400 pieces), mock election ballots (400), training ballots (14,926), roadshow ballots (109,250), final testing and sealing ballots (34,650), and pre-election logic and accuracy test ballots (10,395).
This marks a historic milestone as BARMM prepares for its first-ever parliamentary elections.