Comelec: Ballot printing nearly 95% complete

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced Thursday that about 95% of the ballots for the May 9 polls have been printed.

The poll body reported that 63.85 million ballots have been printed, accounting for 94.68% of the 67.44 million ballots expected to be printed.

There were 178,990 defective ballots set to be burned and reprinted.

Comelec Commissioner George Garcia previously said that ballots that are found with smudges, improper cuts and colors, or unmatched timestamps will be burned in front of candidates, political parties, or their representatives. 

Meanwhile, the Comelec said it had approved the applications of 84,221 individuals for the local absentee voting (LAV). At a press briefing on Thursday, Garcia said that there were a total of 93,567 verified applicants.

“‘Yung na-disapprove 9,346. Bakit na-disapprove? Hindi pa pala rehistrado, hindi pa bumoto bilang local absentee voter. Number two, deactivated, hindi naman talaga bumoboto nang dalawang magkasunod na elections,” he said.

(A total of 9,346 applications were disapproved because they were not registered or had not voted as local absentee voters. Number two, they are deactivated as they did not vote in two consecutive elections.)

The Philippine National Police had the highest number of applicants with 48,698, followed by the Philippine Army with 32,786, and the Philippine Air Force with 4,261.

A total of 953 applications came from the media.

The poll body allows government employees and officials, members of the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, as well as media workers, including photojournalists, documentary makers, technical and support staff, bloggers, and freelance journalists to avail of the LAV.

The LAV will take place from April 27 to 29.

A manual system of elections will be adopted for the LAV and those who will avail of it can only vote for the positions of president, vice president, senator, and party-list representative. — VBL, GMA News