The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has decided to let go of the pre-printed ballots in favor of the manual ballots for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls on Oct. 25.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said on Wednesday the commission en banc decided to revert to the traditional ballot-type over the pre-printed ones which were used in the automated May 10 national and local elections.

“For the October 25 elections, we will use the manual ballots where the voters manually write the names of the candidates they want to vote for, like in previous elections,” Larrazabal explained.

He added that the use of pre-shaded ballots was eventually shelved due to the time constraints since there is less than two months left before the scheduled polls.

“The proposal to do the shading of names was discussed. However, there is no time to do that since you have to verify the names of the candidates, print out the ballots… it would be difficult,” the Comelec official said.

Earlier, the poll body mulled the idea of using pre-printed ballots in a bid to prepare the voters for the automated May 2013 mid-term elections. (PNA/PIA9-BST)