March 29, 2024

There are over 300,000 defective ballots that will be reprinted, an official of the Commission on Elections said.
Comelec Commissioner George Garcia said 372,878 ballots did not pass the thorough testing on the election documents.
He said the number is 0.58 percent or 372,878 of the total number of the 67,442,616 official ballots that have been printed for both local and overseas voters.
The rejected ballots are those with smudge, not perfectly cut, among others.
“We will first complete the reprinting and the printing of other forms, then the destruction will follow. We will issue a notice,” Garcia said.
The defective ballots are expected to be replaced this week.
The Comelec earlier started the deployment of ballots for May 9 polls nationwide.
Also, the poll body activated the precinct finder for the first time since 2016 where registered voters may now check their actual polling precincts before election day. This is aside from the voter’s information sheet mailed to voters to serve as a guide before they vote on election day.
Meanwhile, the Comelec also released the number of registered voters in the country by sex.
Data from the Records and Statistics Division show that of the 65,721,230 registered voters, 33,644,237 are female while 32,076,993 are male.
The region with the biggest number of registered voters is Region 4-A (Calabarzon) with 9,192,205, followed by the National Capital Region with 7,301,393.
The area with the least number of registered voters is the Cordillera Administrative Region with 1,077,900. – PNA