42M ballots printed out, 10M more to go

AROUND ten million ballots more need to be turned out by the National Printing Office (NPO) to be used in every voting precinct nationwide for the Election Day.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said they have been informed that only 10 million official ballots of the over 52 million are to be printed out for the midterm polls.

“We have already printed 42 million [ ballots]. We are 10 million [away],” the poll chief said.

Earlier, the NPO outsourced to Holy Family Printing Corporation and Canon Marketing Philippines to print the ballots that already began last February 4.

The poll chief added the sched- ule was way earlier than expected.

“We are well ahead in the [printing of the] ballots,” Brillantes boasted.

On Wednesday, NPO Deputy Director Raul Nagrampa revealed that they already printed 81 percent (42.6 million) of the 52.3 million ballots required by the Comelec with 39.2 million (73 percent) already forwarded to the poll body.

Given this rate, Nagrampa said they expect the completion of the project by April 2.

At the NPO, three Canon Color Stream 3000 printers are being utilized to print the precinct-specific official ballots. Each machine has a capacity to print 314 ballots per minute for a total of a million ballots per day.

Based on the NPO contract with the Comelec, the former was given until April 25 to complete the project.