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Friday, March 29, 2024

Register now, Comelec and Vote Pilipinas prod voters

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THE Commission on Elections on Sunday reminded first- time and other unlisted voters to register now, as there will be no more extensions for the deadline of registration by the end of September this year.

At the online launch of the Voter Registration Month organized by the poll body’s information campaign partner Vote Pilipinas, Comelec Director James Jimenez told reporters they cannot postpone again the target date since the filing of Certificates of Candidacy (COC) for all elective positions will follow as scheduled on October 1, a day after the listing of new and other unregistered voters ends.

“[It] means that we have to start preparing for election day documents that we call ‘project of precincts,’ and the only way we can start doing that is if the voter registration is already closed,” he said in mixed Filipino and English.

Jimenez pointed out that preparations for the May 9, 2022 National and Local Elections would be difficult if the figures for registered voters continue to grow due to the extended deadline.

“We print only the exact number of ballots as there are voters. So if the target number of voters is moving, our printing target is also moving. That’s kind of difficult. We have to put a stop to it at some point. So September 30, 2021, that’s your deadline,” he said.

With over four months prior to the end of the voter registration, Vote Pilipinas and Comelec kicked off the month-long election-related celebration aimed at increasing the number of registered voters by 10 percent to 68.8 million by 2022.

The Voter Registration Month serves as a headstart for their two-pronged initiatives—the ongoing registration campaign and the vote campaign come October 2021.

To encourage the enlistment of more new voters, which currently count at around 1.5 million, there will be a Mobilization Program that is efficient and effective to help ensure that local communities will be 100-percent registered to vote.

“We would like to take this time to invite all the community groups and organizers of different communities and organizations to work with us to echo the call for seven million more people to register for the upcoming 2022 elections,” said Ces Rondario, founder of Vote Pilipinas and chief executive officer of Impact Hub Manila.

“One year to go and yet, as far as our target is concerned, we’re still 5.5 million away from our goal of seven million. But [we’re] hopeful that with all of our help and all of your help we can really make this happen,” she added.

To help drum up interest in the observance of voter registration this month with numerous online activities lined up by Vote Pilipinas, the Comelec is set to announce very soon the rules for satellite registration.

“This will become part of the usual process for voter registration,” the spokesperson said. “We are seeing that the number of new voters registering with us is really increasing. So this early, again four-and-a-half months before the end of registration, we can still accommodate them.”

Asked whether the popular community pantries initiated by Ana Patricia Non on Maginhawa Street could be tapped to reach out to more people, he said this could be tapped for the distribution of voter registration forms.

“There’s no problem with that. In fact, some people have already approached us to ask about that. They can do that. That will help a lot,” Jimenez stressed.

Read full article on BusinessMirror

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