The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) on Thursday has once again postponed the printing of ballots for the 2025 midterm elections, moving the date to Monday of the following week.
The delay was necessitated by Francis Leo Marcos’ withdrawal from the senatorial race.
“Because of his withdrawal, we will need another two to three days to update our database, redo the serialization, and change the ballot faces once again,” Elections Chair George Erwin Garcia said during an interview.
“We won’t be pushing through with our restart (on Friday) … Most probably, we will restart the ballot printing on Monday morning,” he continued.
The ballot printing, which first began on January 6, was initially deferred due to a number of Temporary Restraining Orders (TRO) released by the Supreme Court, voiding the disqualification of some aspirants.
In total, the High Court has ordered the inclusion of 11 national and local candidates, including Marcos, in the official ballots.
The ballot printing was interrupted on January 14 and was set to resume on Monday, January 20. However, it was again held off for Wednesday, January 22, and then Friday, January 24. Now, it is scheduled to restart on January 27.
“For every withdrawal of COCs while we aren’t printing yet, we will need two to three days to effect changes,” Garcia stated.
The COMELEC must update the candidate database, produce a new ballot face template, and serialize the new ballots.
The Elections head urged aspirants planning to withdraw to decide until Friday noon.
“To those who want to withdraw their COCs, do it while there is still time and we have yet to restart with the ballot printing,” he said.
