Mindanaotoday.com | Comelec: Voters listing 40% off target in Cagayan de Oro
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The Commission on Elections in Cagayan de Oro has to register over a thousand voters every day until the January 31 deadline to hit its target – 19,000 or 5 percent of the city’s over 376 thousand registered voters.
“We have registered 11,514 voters as of yesterday,” City Election Officer Ramil Acol said in a forum at SM City Downtown mall Tuesday, January 24, and that an average of 400 registrants daily in malls has been observed since Monday (January 16) last week.
But Acol is not discounting the possibility of daily turnouts of registrants increasing, days before the deadline because of beating-the-deadline mentality of Filipinos, including applicants for reactivations and transfers.
The City Comelec started processing new voter’s registration as well as reactivation and transfer requests December 12 last year in its office and in satellite registration sites – in villages, schools and malls – for registrants’ ease and comfort.
But the turnout of registrants then was only about 300 in a day, the City Election Officer said.
In the same forum, Comelec-10 Regional Director Renato Magbutay said there are two possible reasons for the low turnout of registrants – most eligible voters have already been registered or those who have not registered as voters are not interested in elections.
Magbutay said that, as of now, they do not know of extension of registrations or setting of another registration period before the October 30 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) because these are decided by the Commission (in reference to the Comelec en banc).
He said the Commission set the December 12, 2022 to January 31, 2023 registration period for voters because of the possibility BSKE may held in May this year, but such has become remote, citing October 30, 2023 as their basis in age-eligibility in the registration of SK voters.
The Comelec has been registering 14-year-old individuals who would turn 15 on or before October 30, this year because they become eligible to cast their votes for SK elections by then.
Meanwhile, the Commission is considering the idea of separate voting precincts for Barangay and SK elections, but pouring in of indelible ink on thumbs would be done only once, Magbutay said.
“The BSK Elections would be done manually,” Magbutay said, and that those aged 15 to 30 years old SK members would cast their votes twice, writing on official ballots the names of candidates they wish to be elected into office. (MT)
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