ILOILO CITY — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is ready to welcome registrants in Western Visayas starting July 2, in preparation for the 2019 midterm polls.
Those who are 18 years old and above are encouraged to register at their respective Comelec field offices so they could cast their votes next year, said Comelec 6 (Western Visayas) Assistant Regional Director Tomas Valera in an interview on Friday.
“As always, everything that we need for the registration is already in place,” Valera said.
“They should register early because we were only given a short period. They should not wait for the last day,” he added, noting that the last day of registration is September 29.
Aside from new registrants, Valera said they will also accept transfer/transfer with reactivation, reactivation, change/correction of entry and inclusion/reinstatement of records in the list of voters.
Western Visayas registered 4.4 million voters in last May’s barangay elections and 1.5 million for the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.
Valera said they are expecting the number of voters to increase for the 2019 polls because there are those who have turned 18 after the May 14 local polls.
In a previous interview, he reported that the turnout of voters in the region during the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections was only 76.78 percent.
Comelec-6 data showed that only 3.3 million of the 4.4 million registered voters took part in the barangay election and 1.1 million of the 1.5 million registered voters, in the SK election.
Valera, however, said the turnout is not unusual. However, during national polls, the turnout usually exceeds 80 percent. (Cindy Ferrer/PNA)
