VOTER registration will not resume at the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) next month, Elections chairman George Garcia has said.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has announced that voter registration activities will resume on July 1 to 11 for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) that will be held on December.
But Garcia this will not apply at the BARMM because of the prohibition under the “Voter’s Registration Act,” which provides that no registration of voters shall be conducted within 120 days before a regular election and 90 days before a special election.
The first-ever Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections (BPE) is set on October 13, which falls within the 120-day period.
“The law itself states that there should be no registration within such a period. We may violate the law if we conduct voter registration in the BARMM,” Garcia said.
In addition, he said holding voter registration activities in BARMM for the BSKE may cause confusion among the residents ahead of the BPE, pointing out that the voters list to be used in the Bangsamoro polls would be the list used during the May 12 national and local polls since the former is merely an extension of the latter.
Garcia said that “those who will be able to register (from July 1 to 11) may be led to believe that they can now vote for the BPE on October 13” if we hold the voter registration in the region.
Because of this, Garcia said some eligilble BARMM voters won’t be able to cast their votes in the BSKE.
“Since we won’t have voter registration in the Bangsamoro, there are those who won’t be able to vote in the BSKE. We think the numbers (to be disenfranchised) won’t be high. (But), of course, it is never our duty to disenfranchise voters,” he said.
The Comelec said there are around 2.3 million registered voters in the BARMM.
