SWS poll: Only 3 in 5 Filipinos eligible to vote

ONLY three in five Filipinos, or 63 percent of the population, are eligible to vote, the results of a recent survey by Social Weather Stations showed.

In the survey conducted from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 with 1,800 respondents, said that only 34.7 million Filipino adults have been “validated” for the 2016 elections.

Validated voters are those who are registered  and have their biometrics taken by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). A voter’s picture, fingerprint and signature constitute one’s biometrics.

Under Comelec Resolution No. 9721, only validated voters are eligible to participate in the 2016 presidential polls.

In terms of geographic area, the survey said that there are about 9.4 million “validated” voters in Mindanao, 7.4 million voters in Visayas, 16.6 million in “balance Luzon” and 4.1 million in Metro Manila.

More women voters have been validated over men voters (64 percent versus 61 percent.)

The survey results also revealed that more voters living in rural areas (67 percent) have been validated over those living in urban areas (58 percent.)

Among social classes, voters from Class E are more compliant in having their voter registration violated than other social segments. Class E voters have been validated (68 percent) compared to those from class ABC (63 percent) and class D (61 percent.)

Aside from identifying the number of Filipino adults allowed to vote in next year’s polls, the survey also revealed that about 17.8 million Filipinos are registered but not have their biometrics taken while 4.5 million Filipinos have not yet been registered.

The results of the survey were first published in the BusinessWorld newspaper on Wednesday.

The survey has sampling error margins of ±2% for national percentages; ±6% each for Metro Manila, “balance Luzon” and Mindanao; and ±3% for the Visayas.  AC