Printing of 50 million ballots finished — Smartmatic

With just a little over two weeks before the May 10 elections, poll machine supplier Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) on Friday announced that it has finished printing the more than 50 million ballots needed for the automated elections. Smartmatic-Asia president Cesar Flores said they have finished printing 50,850,940 ballots before their self-imposed deadline on April 25, Sunday. "We finished printing two days before the deadline," he said. In a text message to GMANews.TV, Smartmatic spokesman Gene Gregorio said they finished printing Thursday midnight. Printing of the official ballots began on February 8 at the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City. Gregorio said the delivery of the ballots to different areas nationwide will begin on Sunday. Smartmatic has been awarded the contract to deliver the ballots. There are 50,723,734 registered voters for the May 10 elections. The total number of printed ballots include those being used in Hong Kong and Singapore. Earlier, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it will deliver the ballots directly to the municipal treasurer, instead of having them delivered to the provincial treasurer first to hasten the delivery. "We have been discussing that long before... in order to save time at saka efforts," said Comelec Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer. The ballots are 8 inches wide and 25 inches long and are printed on 160 GSM papers imported from Canada. But ballots for the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) are 27 inches long because it has Arabic translations. Smartmatic had earlier brought in a fifth Kodak printer to the NPO to ease and fasten the printing of the ballots. The ballots supposedly have security features which include the UV (ultraviolet) markings, unique ballot paper, a bar code, Comelec markings, and the unique precinct-based numbers on the ballot. Earlier, Smartmatic-TIM was accused of failing to supply the correct ink for the UV marks, making the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines unable to read them. The Comelec will instead use handheld UV lamps to determine whether there are UV markings on the ballots and verify its authenticity. Half of the printed ballots have been transferred to the Foreign Service Mail Distribution Center (FSMDC) in Manila because of the lack of space at the NPO. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is set to conduct a ceremonial printing of the last ballot late Friday. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ/LBG, GMANews.TV