Voter Registration/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc has “decided against” the extension of the voter registration period, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said Wednesday.
Jimenez said this decision was reached after several senators called on the poll body to extend the voter registration period up to October 31.
“The En Banc — citing concerns about the timeline of preparations for the 2022 National and Local Elections, as well as significant continuing apprehensions about the health and safety of the public and of COMELEC personnel — decided against extending the voter registration period,” Jimenez told reporters in a Viber thread.
Voter registration ends on September 30, 2021.
In a later press briefing, Jimenez noted that extending the voter period would cause a “domino effect.”
“You delay the end of one, and you basically delay everything else,” he said.
Jimenez said they would need to finalize the list of voters and failure to do so “will have the potential to adversely affect the timeline with the preparations of the presidential elections.”
Asked for the Comelec’s projection of the number of voters for the rest of the voter registration period, Jimenez said: “It’s a little tough, it’s probably gonna be under a million conservatively because of several lockdowns in effect right now.”
Jimenez, however, noted that the poll body is already past its target number of new voters.
There are a total of 5,727,223 new voter registrants as of August 13, beating the Comelec’s target of four million new voters, according to Comelec commissioner Rowena Guanzon.
5,727, 223 new registrants as of today, August 2021. If only 50% of deactivated voters of 6.3M will be reactivated, we can hit 8, 877, 233 @COMELEC @radyocomelec
— Rowena Guanzon (@rowena_guanzon) August 13, 2021
More than 60 million voters have been registered, according to the Comelec.