Comelec asks citizens’ groups to help win back deactivated voters

MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has asked citizens’ arm groups and other stakeholders to help encourage the 5.3 million deactivated voters to reactivate to be able to participate in next year's midterm elections.

Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia said these groups would be helpful in educating these individuals on the importance of reactivating their registration and participating in the country’s electoral exercises.

“Dapat reactivation talaga kaya nakiusap na tayo sa Namfrel (National Movement for Free Elections), PPCRV (Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting), Lente (Legal Network for Truthful Elections), at iba pang (The goal is reactivation so we have requested assistance from the Namfrel, PPCRV, Lente and other) cause oriented groups. Ang effort dapat ay lahat ng kababayan natin na mawawala sa listahan ay makaboto. Sa batas, kapag hindi makaboto ng dalawang elections, sadyang ‘yun ang resulta. Madedeactivate kayo (The effort is to enable our compatriots who are not on the voters' list to register and vote. Under the law, if you do not vote in two elections, that is the result. You would be deactivated),” the poll body chief said during a briefing on updates and preparations for simultaneous midterm polls and the Bangsamoro parliamentary elections on Tuesday.

Based on the latest data, the poll body deactivated some 5.3 million for failure to vote during the two last elections.

Due to this figure of deactivated voters, Garcia said the poll body would no longer meet its 70 million to 71 million target registered voters for the forthcoming polls.

Currently, the country has 66 million registered voters.

The Comelec chairman added that close to three million individuals have registered in the ongoing voter registration which will end on Sept. 30.

He also maintained that the voter registration period will not be extended.

“February pa tayo nagpapa register. Napakahaba na po ng panahon na yan. Kakapusin naman po ang Comelec sa aming timelines. Kailangan ma finalize list of voters, mga presinto na ika-cluster, kailangan namin yun para sa (The registration has been ongoing since February. We already have a long time for it. The Comelec will be behind its timelines. We need to finalize the list of voters and clustering of precincts. We need that for the) data of precincts," he added. (PNA)