Over 200,000 voters to be deactivated

CEBU, Philippines — The over 200,000 voters who failed to cast their ballots for two elections in a row are now being deactivated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Cebu in time for the upcoming barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls.

Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said that to be included in the deactivation are voters who died but have yet to be taken off the list.

He explained that Comelec did not delete in their system inactive voters for three consecutive elections because of the Protection Order from the Presidential Electoral Tribunal and the Senate Electoral Tribunal for filed election protests.

With the deactivation, Castillano expects a significant decrease from the recorded number of 2,158,896 registered voters during the last May elections.

Comelec predicted that the amount of new registrants will not reach 200,000, thus, the deactivated voters will not be offset by the number of new voters.

Castillano also pointed out Comelec’s efforts in making the elections accessible to marginalized sectors, such as setting up offsite satellite registrations in far-flung barangays, and allocated registration days prioritizing women, PWDs and indigenous people.

“Comelec has made the elections is all-inclusive,” he said.

If the elections will be postponed, Castillano said they will continue with the registration. They are also urging Congress to expedite the passage of the bill that seeks to move the elections, giving them more time to prepare. (FREEMAN)