MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is set to start the printing of 61 million ballots for the May 2019 elections by the third week of January.

But as of yesterday, the Comelec has yet to come out with the official list of senatorial and local candidates running in the mid-term polls.

“We are having problems in cleansing the list of candidates and so there is a minor delay in coming out with the final list,” Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said.

The unofficial list, Jimenez said, still includes names of over 140 candidates for senators.

A total of 152 aspirants have filed their certificate of candidacy (COC) for the May 2019 senatorial elections.

Despite the delay in the release of the final list of candidates, Jimenez said the timeline for the ongoing preparations for next year’s polls has not been affected.

“We expect to start printing of ballots on the third week of January so we still have time. What is important is that when we come out with the final list, there will only be minimal corrections,”  he said.