Comelec: Voters in Cebu decreasing

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Provincial Commission on Elections noted a decrease in the number of registered voters in Cebu this year compared to the number of voters in last year’s successive elections.

Comelec Provincial Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said they are now in the process of “cleansing” the list of voters in Cebu and Cebu City, resulting to the decrease.

From 2,430,267 registered voters in the May 10, 2010 elections, Castillano said they have only enlisted 2,363,711 in the October 2011 elections. The figure consistently decreased to 2,274,131 as of April this year.

Castillano said the figure is likely to increase as voters have until October 31 this year to register so that they can vote in the May 13, 2013 elections.

He said they have already anticipated the number of registered voters, who have already died, to increase until October 31.

Castillano further said that apart from this, other reasons causing the decrease is the voter’s failure to vote twice in last year’s elections, multiple registrants, transfer of residence, and Overseas Filipino Workers transferring registration abroad.

He said they are now stricter in deleting the names of registered voters who died.

Every quarter of the year, Castillano said they go to the respective local civil registrars who submit to them certificates bearing the names of voters who have passed away, which election officers use as their basis in the deletion of names.

“If the election officer has done his job in deleting these, Comelec Manila will require the local civil registrar to issue a certificate nga wa’y namatay if walay namatay na botante, (…to issue a certificate that nobody died if there are no voters who died.)” Castillano further informed.

Meanwhile, Castillano himself prefers the automated elections than the manual way of counting the votes.

“Definitely we in the Comelec would want it to be automated because there is already a law providing for an automated election. We are just implementing the law,” he said.

He also hopes the Supreme Court could arrive at an early resolution on the move to stop using the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines from 2010 for them to still have time to conduct bidding on the needed materials.

“Para dili sad mi mabitin sa among preparations, (So that we will also be ready with our preparations.)” the Provincial Comelec Supervisor said, saying that they already have a calendar of activities for next year’s elections as early as this time.

The SC recently filed a temporary restraining order preventing the Comelec from buying and using again some 82,000 PCOS machines from Smartmatic.

This followed an appeal filed by the Automated Election Watch and the Solidarity for Sovereignty, who questioned the legality of the agreement between Smartmatic and Comelec, as well as the truthfulness of the PCOS machines.  (FREEMAN)