VOTERS have less than a week to register for the May 9, 2016, elections.
Commission on Elections Chair Andres Bautista said there were no plans to extend the registration beyond Oct. 31 but the Comelec was considering giving voters in areas badly hit by Typhoon “Lando” more time to enlist.
“We are in the last week of the registration period. We will not give an extension anymore so voters should go to their respective Comelec offices and register,” Bautista told reporters in an interview.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Bautista announced the possibility that voters in the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon, who were greatly affected by the typhoon, could register for the elections beyond the original deadline.
“Given Typhoon Lando, we will look into it and we will see whether it merits a special extension for regions that were affected,” he said.
As for the rest of the country, registration will end on Oct. 31. Bautista said Comelec offices nationwide had started operating on a 12-hour, seven days a week basis in the final stretch of the registration period.
The Comelec has also created 40 augmentation teams that will be on call when a particular registration center requires assistance due to the heavy influx of registrants. Each team is composed of two personnel and a voter registration machine, he said.
The election body has also tapped 108 malls, 76 covered courts, 34 gymnasiums, 29 municipal halls and 18 town plazas nationwide for satellite registration from Oct. 17 to 31 as part of its “Huling Hirit” campaign.
Satellite registration booths have also been set up in 18 convention centers, 18 stadiums, 12 city halls, eight schools, six atria, six auditoriums, evacuation centers, multipurpose halls, public markets and a barangay hall across the country in anticipation of the heavy turnout of voters who will enlist in the final six days of the registration period.
Bautista also announced that nearly six million voters’ identification cards remained unclaimed by registered voters in various local Comelec offices. But he said a voter’s ID is not necessary to be able to cast a ballot in the May 9 elections.
He said the public could check on the availability of their voter’s ID through the Comelec Precinct Finder on the Comelec’s official website.