More than a year before the next national and local elections, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) disclosed that seven million voters have been deactivated.
The Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and Peoples Participation on Thursday discussed Senate Resolution No. 639 or Slow Progress of Voters Registration where the fact surfaced that the COMELEC has not yet reached its target of four million first time voters.
The deactivation of seven million voters due to their non-participation in two elections caused the decline in the total number of registered voters from 61 million to 54.5 million.
Lawmakers have expressed alarm over the millions of deactivated voters which could contribute to the 2022 National and Local Elections.
“Conservative estimate nasa 3 million ang babalik to file for reactivation, and so far, ang nag-file pa lang ng reactivation from January of last year to January this year nasa mga 200,000 pa lang (The conservative estimate is 3 million for those who will file for reactivation. So far, only around 200,000 have filed from January last year to January this year),” COMELEC Deputy Executive Director Teopisto Elnas Jr. said.
Among the factors on the lower number of voters registration is the prevailing pandemic which limited the commission’s office hours with some areas affected by localized lockdown.
The COMELEC has recorded 1.3 million voters who registered from September 2020 to January 2021. – Report from Eunice Samonte
