MANILA, Philippines — There will be no extension of voters’ registration after Sept. 30, 2024, said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday.
According to Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco, extending the deadline for registration would be “impossible” as the poll body would immediately submit the list of registrants to the Election Registration Board Hearing by Oct. 15.
“Wala po talagang extension dahil binabalak na po ng Comelec na talaga na i-imprenta ang pinal na bilang ng balota by December,” Laudiangco explained in a Radyo 630 interview.
(So there won’t be an extension because the Comelec is already planning to print the final number of ballots by December.)
READ: Comelec looks set to hit goal of 3M new voters
Apart from the Election Board Hearing, Laudiangco said Comelec would also have to plot the registered voters to their respective precincts after the Sept. 30 deadline.
Furthermore, Comelec would still need to run all the registered voters through its Automated Fingerprint Identification System to ensure no duplicates across all regions of the Philippines.
The voter registration for the 2025 national and local elections officially opened on February 12 and will run until September 30.
READ: Comelec nears target of 3 million new voters for 2025
With a target number of 3 million, Comelec has logged 2,548,324 total voter registrants as of May 2.