Voters fill up election registration forms in a local Comelec office. FILE PHOTO by Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net
MANILA — More than 2.7 million Filipinos filed their applications to be included on the voters’ list in the recently concluded four-month voters’ registration period of the Commission on Elections.
The election registration boards (ERBs) in each town and city are still in the process of hearing and approving the applications for voter registration, according to Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez.
Data from the poll body showed that 2,764,745 Filipinos filed their applications for voter registration from November 7, 2016 to April 29, 2017.
“We expected only about 2.5 million. The satellite registrations helped a lot, both in terms of awareness and in actual registration turnout,” said Jimenez on Monday.
The poll official credited the Comelec’s field offices, officials and personnel on the ground for the successful registration period for the 2017 barangay (village) and Sangguniang Kabataan (youth council) elections.
Of the 2.7 million applications for registration, 705,570 were youth voters aged 15 to 17 years old.
The Calabarzon region had the highest number of registrants with 410,397 applications filed in the four-month period.
Jimenez also credited the Comelec’s lecture series, the “#KEBS: Know Elections Better, Superfriends!” which targeted youth voters to encourage them to register for the elections.
“Although the #KEBS lecture series started late in the voters’ registration period, we did reach out to the youth and promoted the voters’ registration,” he said.
This is apart from satellite registration activities conducted in schools to bring the voters’ registration process closer to youth voters.
With the end of the voters’ registration period, the ERBs in cities and towns will be evaluating the applications in order to weed out double and multiple registrations.
Oppositions may be filed against an applicant before the ERB on questions of residency or citizenship until May 8, after which the ERB would conduct a hearing on the petition.
On the other hand, the ERBs will be evaluating the applications for registration from May 15 to 19.
If there are no challenges to an application for registration, the applicant is likely to be included in the Comelec voters’ list as a registered voter.
The ERBs have until May 22 to post the the list of approved and disapproved applications in local election offices, while the certified and final list of voters will be posted by July 25. SFM/rga