Comelec to look into possible extension of voter registration period

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will look into the possibility of extending the period of voter registration set for September 30 this year to accommodate more electors for the 2022 national elections.

This, after Senator Francis Pangilinan asked the commission to do so considering that there are still about 15 million expected eligible voters for the 2022 polls who have not yet registered, according to a combined data from the Comelec and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

During the hearing of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms, Pangilinan urged the Comelec to extend the voter registration period to 30 days up to 45 days so that more eligible voters would be able to register.

"It's just a matter of a 30 days extension or 45 days extension, I think the Comelec should consider this. Because precisely you have 15 million estimated who are not registered," he said.

"So every step at getting them to register should be taken into consideration. And we hope the September 30 deadline considering the number of those who have not registered, the number who have deactivated, that's the least we can do, accommodate more time to register," he added.

In response, Comelec commissioner Marlon Casquejo said they would look into Pangilinan's proposal, although he expressed concern that this would affect the timeline they had already set for the 2022 elections.

The period for the filing of candidacy, in fact, would start on October 15.

"We are not closing doors. What I'm saying is it would be a very, very tight schedule for us in our timeline. Ang daming apektado sa configuration. But then again we will look into that situation," Casquejo said.

Based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the voting population of the country by the 2022 polls is around 73 million. The Comelec said that there are so far 58 million registered voters, which means 15 million are not registered.

Deputy executive director for operations Teopisto Elnas said they are expecting 4 million first-time voters to register, of which 1.3 million have already registered from September 2020 to January this year and 1.6 million will be automatically transferred from the Sangguniang Kabataan database to the regular voter database.

The commission has also deactivated around 7 million voters for failing to vote in the two preceding elections, but they are expecting that 3 million of them will file for reactivation.

All in all, the Comelec said that they are targeting only around 1 million eligible voters to register by September 30. -MDM, GMA News

Pangilinan, however, was not satisfied with the numbers presented, considering that data from the PSA and the Comelec showed that there are still 15 million Filipinos eligible voters for 2022 polls that are not registered.

Casquejo explained that the 15 million voters include overseas Filipino workers.

"I will raise that in the en banc meeting next week, Wednesday, to align with the PSA's expected number of eligible but not registered voters," he said.

"We will also consider overseas voters who were repatriated, how are we going to treat them, if they can still vote even if they are in the Philippines, or they really need to transfer their registration so they can vote in their localities," he added.

The 2022 national and local elections are set for May 9, 2022. #