Comelec purges ARMM voters’ list of over 280,000 names

COTBATO CITY, Philippines–The Commission on Elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has deleted 280,077 applicants from the voters’ list.

Lawyer Rey Sumalipao, ARMM election director, said the poll body conducted an election registration board hearing to determine qualified and disqualified voter-applicants from Nov. 26 to 30.

“The ERB found that there were 250,773 double or multiple registrants and 29,304 minor applicants or a total of 280,077 disqualified applicants,” Sumalipao said in a radio interview Monday.

The poll body has conducted a general registration of voters last July 9-18 as part of electoral reforms in the region which has been known to be the cheating capital in the country’s electoral processes.

Sumalipao said that during the five-day general list up, 1,574,294 showed up and applied to become registered voters.

Those de-listed were found to be either under-aged or multiple registrants.

With the help of Automated Fingerprinting Identification System (AFIS) of the Comelec, 280,077 were found to be disqualified and could not cast their votes in next year’s mid-term elections.

Sumalipao said the names of qualified registered voters will be posted at the municipal election offices region-wide on Jan. 13 so the voters will know where they will be voting in the election simultaneous with the start of voters’ education campaign of the Comelec.