OVER 4.2 million registered voters have been deactivated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ahead of the May 2025 national and local polls.
Data released by the Comelec show that there are 4,239,483 registered voters whose records were deactivated after the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls in October 2023.
A large majority of those deactivated, or 4,237,054 voters, are those who failed to vote in two successive preceding regular elections as shown by their voting records.
There were also 1,829 voters who were deactivated in accordance with court orders to exclude them, while another 595 voters failed to validate their records.
Other reasons for deactivation include loss of Filipino citizenship (3), sentenced by final judgment to suffer imprisonment for not less than one year (1), and sentenced by final judgment of having committed a crime involving disloyalty to the duly constituted government (1).
Calabarzon has the most number of deactivated voters with 733,903 registration records, while more than half a million (503,297) voters were also deactivated in Central Luzon.
Other regions with a high number of deactivated voters are Western Visayas (384,001), Central Visayas (366,968), and Bicol Region (315,971).
To recall, there were 67,839,861 registered voters during the 2023 BSKE.
Voter registration activities, including reactivation of registration records, for the May 2025 polls, on the other hand, are ongoing until September 30, 2024.
In a related development, the House of Representatives on Wednesday night unanimously approved on the third and final reading a bill seeking to expand the options for registration and voting for Filipinos abroad.
Voting 188-0 with no abstention, lawmakers approved House Bill No. 10178, which seeks to amend the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003, as amended.
“The bill aims to make voter registration and voting easier and more accessible for Filipinos overseas so that we can ensure the efficient exercise of their constitutional right to suffrage,” said Speaker Martin Romualdez.
The measure seeks to allow the registration, certification and transfer of registration of overseas voters by mail or by electronic means, including but not limited to web-based portals and other internet-based technologies.
Once enacted into law, the measure would also authorize electronic voting as an option for overseas voting apart from in-person and mail-in.
HB 10178 also seeks to remove the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee’s approving authority after review to allow voting by mail in an overseas territory.
It also expands the prohibited acts under the law to include theft, concealment, alteration, destruction, mutilation, manipulation, and tampering of electronic data or information. – With Wendell Vigilia
