The Commission on Elections (Comelec) halted the printing of ballots on Tuesday because the name of the political party of Sen. Miriam Defensor- Santiago was not included in the ballot face that bears the names of presidential candidates. “Printing was stopped because the name of the party of Santiago was missing, but printing has resumed,” Comelec Chairman Juan Andres Bautista told reporters. He did not elaborate. Director Genevieve Guevarra, head of the Comelec Printing Committee, said the error was discovered on Monday during the printing of the FTS or final testing and sealing ballots which form part of the 56,772,230 ballots that the commission will print. But Guevarra gave assurances that the glitch created no substantial wastage because only 39 FTS ballots have been printed when the error was spotted by personnel of the ballot verification team. She said printing was stopped the whole day on Tuesday.
It will resume only once they receive the corrected ballot face that will bear the name of Santiago’s political party, the People’s Reform Party (PRP).
“There was no printing the whole day of Tuesday. We are now printing request for demo [demonstration] ballots, around 750,000. That’s what we are doing now while we are waiting for the corrected ballot faces,” Guevarra said.
The official added that the corrected ballot faces would be ready by Wednesday night. “We expect to start printing [of official ballots] tonight. Hopefully, [the corrected ballot faces] will arrive so that we can already start the printing of official ballots,” Guevarra said.
Full Article: Oops, ballot printing delayed again | The Manila Times Online.