There are 400,000 new registrants during extended period, says Comelec

From a one-week extension that turned into a whole month, the call of lawmakers and youth groups has been heard. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) extended the voter registration period until October 30 from its original deadline of September 30. It also announced on Tuesday that there are at least 400,000 new voters who applied during the extension.

There were already around 61 million registered voters in August, but Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez shared the poll body’s progress, ‘Right now, we are close to 63 million registered voters for 2022. Our actual projections were 59 million but right now we are almost at 63 million projected registered voters for 2022.’

‘As for the extension, we originally said we were expecting to get around 300,000 to 350,000 new registrants. But now, we already have around 400,000 new registrants,’ he added. Jimenez also explained that the figure will still increase during the remaining days of the registration period. There are three days left to apply as of writing.

When it comes to Filipinos abroad, Jimenez said that the number of overseas voters is now at 1.6 million after their earlier deadline, which ended on October 14. He said, ‘So all in all if you are going to have 63 million registered voters locally and 1.6 million overseas voters, then you are looking at a voting population of almost 65 million voters and that’s a huge percentage of our population.’

The Philippine Statistics Authority posed that the estimated number of qualified voters by the 2022 elections is at 73 million. Given the recent announcement of Comelec, there are about 8.4 million Filipinos left unregistered. While there are still a huge amount of people who couldn’t make it, the extension encouraged many to apply even if it means enduring long lines or showing up early in the morning.

The post <b> There are 400,000 new registrants during extended period, says Comelec </b> appeared first on WE THE PVBLIC.

Source: we the pvblic