More than 50 percent of the official ballots for the midterm elections have already been printed, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

In a press briefing on Thursday, Comelec Chairperson George Garcia reported that 53 percent of the 72,097,420 official ballots have been printed.

"Dahil sa maraming printing, naubusan na ulit kami ng space at mukhang magagamit na namin yung espasyo ng National Irrigation [Administration] upang doon maitambak ang mga na-print na naming mga balota habang naghihintay ng verification" (Due to a lot of printing, we have run out of space again, and it looks like we can use the space of the National Irrigation Administration to pile up our printed ballots while waiting for verification), Garcia said.

He added that the poll body has already verified 12 to 13 million official ballots.

However, due to the volume of ballots and a lack of manpower, the printing deadline may be moved from 14 April to 20 April.

Garcia also noted that the number of defective ballots has significantly decreased.

"Less than five percent na lang po yung defective ballots natin. Dati 30 percent nung una tayong nag-imprenta (Our defective ballots are less than five percent. It used to be 30 percent when we first started printing)," he added.