THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said almost 65 million Filipinos have so far registered to vote in the May 2022 national and local elections.
In a virtual townhall forum, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the figure includes an estimated 63 million locally registered voters, and 1.6 million overseas voters.
“We are looking at a voting population of almost 65 million voters. And that’s a huge percentage of our population,” said Jimenez, adding that “this is incredible considering that we are in a pandemic.”
Jimenez said the Comelec expects the number to still increase as eligible voters are likely to beat the October 30 extended deadline for voter registration.
“We were expecting to still get some 300 to 350 thousand new registrants. But now, we already have around 400,000 new registrants,” he said.
“There’s still more coming actually. We expect the crowd to be getting larger as we get closer to the deadline,” added Jimenez.
The Comelec had originally set the deadline for voter registration, both local and overseas, on September 30, 2021. It, however, extended the voter registration until October 14 for overseas, and until October 30 for local applicants following a clamor from lawmakers and the public.
