The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is working to have the 77,000 ballot boxes delivered at the same time with the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines to polling centers nationwide.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said they are eyeing the possibility of having the three forwarding companies that Smartmatic-TIM contracted to deliver the PCOS to also deliver the ballot boxes as well.

“The ballot boxes and PCOS machine go straight to the polling centers,” he said in an interview.

The three forwarding companies - Argo International, Ace, and Germalin Enterprises – were contracted to deploy the more than 76,000 plus PCOS units to the polling centers days before the May 10 polls.

Last Friday, Comelec even met with Smartmatic-TIM, representatives of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Philippine National Police (PNP), Department of Education (DepEd) and the forwarding companies to discuss the deployment details.

Asked whether they are also tapping the companies to deliver the 50 million plus official ballots, Larrazabal said, this they have to bid out first.

“The ballot goes straight to the treasurer’s office. That will be bidded out,” he said.

“But we are already working on the awarding…what’s important with the ballot is that you can track it.

That’s important because unlike the PCOS, you can always have a spare one but with the ballot it’s limited,” stressed Larrazabal.

The Comelec is set to print around 50 million ballots with a 1:1 ratio to the official number of registered voters with no excess ballots.