UNLIKE in past poll exercises, there will be no excess official ballots to be printed for the September 14 Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE), according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
In a press briefing during the Kick-off Ceremony for the printing of the official BPE ballots at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City, Comelec Chairman George Garcia said the number of official ballots to be assigned to a particular precinct would be exact.
"There will be no excess ballots. It is strictly a one-to-one ratio," said Garcia.
"You can expect that if there are 200 voters in a precinct, only that many ballots will be sent," he added.
He said this is in order to prevent allegations of fraud come Election Day.
"There is the issue of where the excess ballots are being used. If there are 5,212 precincts and each has three excess ballots, that amounts to 15,000 ballots. We don't want any suspicion arising regarding where those excess ballots end up," said Garcia.
Meanwhile, the Comelec began printing the 2.3 million official BPE ballots on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, with the poll body determined to complete it in one week.
Garcia said they will need three weeks at most to be able to complete the ballot printing, including the verification process.
"We can finish printing the 2.3 million ballots in one to two weeks," said Garcia.
"However, the ballot verification process takes a bit longer, as they have to be verified one by one. That part will take us to about three weeks," he added.
A total of 2,393,202 official ballots are set to be printed at the NPO with a cost of P63 million.
"We will prioritize the ones for Tawi-Tawi. We will begin with the ballots of the farthest island," said Garcia. (Anton Banal/SunStar Philippines)
