More than 142,000 new voters registered in Pangasinan

DAGUPAN CITY , Philippines  – The election supervisor in Pangasinan is optimistic he has reached their 200,000 mark for new registrants for the May 10, 2010 elections in the filing of application of voter’s registration that ended yesterday.

Lawyer Reddy Balarbar told The STAR that since the start of registration of voters on Dec. 2, 2008 up to their September 2009 data alone, the number of new registrants who enlisted across the 44 towns and four cities of Pangasinan has reached 142,615.

Those who underwent reactivation for those who failed to vote for two consecutive elections have reached 30,999, he said.

He said the number hasn’t included yet the new registrants in October which was the peak of the registration for those trying to beat the deadline.

In each town, they expect to have this October alone a minimum of 1,000 new registrants while cities are expected to have 2,000.

“With this number, we can safely say that we have reached our target of 200,000 new registrants ready to participate in the 2010 polls,” Balarbar said.

He said based on the latest Election Registration Board data in July 2009, Pangasinan has 1,454,473 registered voters.

Also, Balarbar said that the last day of the filing of registration so far in Pangasinan was smooth-sailing except for the usual complaints of long queues “because practically everyone came to beat the deadline.”

He said it was the Filipinos’ mañana habit or procrastination that makes them troop on the same day at the Comelec offices.