Comelec: 54.6 M registered to vote

MANILA, Philippines - Some 54.6 million individuals have registered for the May 2016 local and national polls, based on the preliminary reports submitted to the main office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Chairman Andres Bautista said yesterday.

Bautista noted that this exceeded their target of 53 million to 54 million voters for the May 2016 elections.

“Almost 100 percent (of the reports are already in). Only ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) is not yet complete,” Bautista said in an interview.

Records showed that ARMM had submitted only 42 percent of its report, equivalent to 1,651,183 votes. All other regions have posted 100 percent submission rates.

The vote-rich regions are Region 4A with 7,630,180 votes; followed by National Capital Region with 6,252,132 votes; Region 3 with 6,075,218 votes; Region 6 with 4,425,224 votes; Region 7 with 4,414,255 votes and Region 5 with 3,115,719 votes.

Bautista clarified that the figures will likely go down because the lists will have to go through the Election Registration Board (ERB), which looks into petitions for disqualification filed against voters.

The lists will also be screened by the Automated Fingerprint Identification System to determine which voters have double or multiple registration and do not have biometrics.

According to Comelec spokesman James Jimenez, the figure does not include some 1.3 million migrant Filipino workers who registered through overseas absentee voting (OAV).  

“We are still awaiting reports from posts overseas. Our target for OAV is 1.5 milion and at the start of the last two weeks, we are at about 1.3 million. So that is what we are looking to check. Hopefully by next week we can report actual figures to you about overseas registration,” Jimenez added.

Jimenez also said the Comelec is studying what triggered a jump in the registration.

“Obviously, the biggest reason here is that this will be a presidential election. Secondly, this registration has been a talk-up in all channels, particularly in the social media. The level of awareness of voters and potential voters is high,” he added.

The Comelec is also looking at the possible impact of mall registration on the increase in the number of prospective voters.

The poll body expects to come up with a list of voters by Dec. 15 after the ERB has completed its hearings. 

No reason to extend

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said yesterday that there is no good reason to extend the voters’ registration that ended last Oct. 31 after 17 months.

In a statement, Macalintal said that the petition to extend the registration of voters filed by the Kabataan party-list group with the Supreme Court (SC) should be denied for lack of merit.