Last-minute surge seen as voter registration ends
THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) sees a last minute surge in voter registration on Saturday, October 30, the deadline for the filing of application for registration for the upcoming May 2022 national and local elections.
Comelec spokesman James Jimenez on Friday, October 29, reminded registrants that they only have until today to file their applications, including application for transfer, change/corrections of entries, reactivation, inclusion, and reinstatement of name in the list of voters.
He said though that issuance of voter certification, which serves as temporary voter’s ID cards, would be temporarily suspended in Metro Manila and other areas with high turnout of voter registrants.
“Yes, we expect that there will still be many trying to beat the deadline tomorrow. As for today, the field offices haven’t yet submitted their respective assessments,” said Jimenez in a Viber message.
“Voter registration ends tomorrow. No extensions,” added Jimenez.
As of Thursday, Jimenez said that there were already close to 63 million registered voters for 2022 with roughly 4.5 million new registrants in the book which, he said, was incredibly high considering that there is a pandemic.
According to Jimenez, the voter registration extension period has, so far, attracted already more than 400,000 new registrants and they keep on coming, surpassing previous projections of around 350,000.
On the other hand, overseas voters’ registration, which ended on October 14, was able to attract some 1.6 million registrants.
“All in all, locally and overseas, we have a voting population of almost 65 million voters, and that’s a huge percentage of our national population,” Jimenez said.
The voter registration was supposed to end September 30 but was moved to October 30 on the request of both Houses of Congress.
Meanwhile, the Comelec has also released the tentative list of candidates for the 2022 elections.
The list is based solely on the certificates of candidacy (CoC) and certificates of nomination and acceptance, as well as certificates of nomination filed from Oct. 1 to 8, 2021.
Among others, the list showed a total of 97 aspirants for the position of president, 28 for vice president,174 for senator, and 270 for party-list groups.
“The contents of the list as uploaded are not yet final. We still have deadlines for requests for correction of names to appear on the ballot, and for substitution of official candidates due to withdrawal,” Jimenez said.
The last day to file a request for correction of names to appear on the ballot is on November 8.
The deadline for the substitute of an official candidate of a political party or coalition who withdrew, died or was disqualified by final judgment, to file a CoC in order to reflect the name of the substitute on the official ballot, is on November 15.