The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be printing more than 67 million ballots for the May 2022 polls.
In a video presentation, the poll body said 67,442,714 official ballots will be printed at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City.
Of the said number, 1.6 million are ballots for overseas voting and 65.7 million ballots are for local voting.
Comelec Deputy Executive Director for Administration (DEDA) Helen Aguila-Flores said based on their timeline, they are scheduled to print the last set of ballots in April.
"We are scheduled to print the last set of ballots on April 12 to 21 and that's for the National Capital Region. This is a very modest timeline that already includes a buffer for contingencies," she said during a virtual NPO walkthrough on Tuesday, Jan. 18.
"Actually if we will be printing 67 million ballots and if we will start tomorrow, I think and I'm confident we have a buffer period for eventualities," added Flores.
She said they also prepared a contingency plan in case the pandemic hamper their timeline.
"We've adopted strategies such as batching of workers and coming up with a reserve pool of workers just in case a particular cluster is infected. We are prepared for that eventuality and we are really hoping that we will be able to finish the printing on time," Flores said.
During the virtual walkthrough, the poll body explained the process of the ballot printing from production, verification, quarantine, ballot exit, packing and shipping.
It also showed some of the security features of the official such as QR codes, security and timing marks, and UV marks.
"These security features ensure that only legitimate ballots are allowed to be used on Election Day," the poll body said.