Registered voters in Cebu top 2.4M

CEBU, Philippines - The number of voters who registered with the Commission on Elections all over Cebu City and Province has reached 2,416,092.

Cebu City has a total number of 516,232 registered voters for next year’s elections, as revealed by the Comelec Cebu City office.  

This is 5.72 percent higher than the 486,711 who registered for the 2007 elections.

Of the 516,232 registered voters in the city, 237,340 come from the 46 barangays in north district and 278,892 from the 34 barangays in the south district.

The city has a total of 2,938 established precincts in 70 voting centers, but with the implementation of the poll automation next year, some precincts will be clustered and the city will now have 560 clustered precincts.

City election officer Marchel Sarno disclosed that Smartmatic will be putting one Precinct Count Optical Scan machine in each clustered precinct and assign a technician to each machine.

“Kay in case ug dunay trouble sa machine, marimidyuhan dayon kay naa may standby technician, dili ma-hamper ang flow sa election,” Sarno stressed.

The election officer said the city will need some 4,000 teachers to man the clustered precincts as members of the Board of Election Inspectors and support staff. In 2007, the city Comelec acquired the services of more than 8,000 teachers and support staff for the said elections.

Meanwhile, Cebu province has a total number of 1,732,775 registered voters excluding the cities of Cebu and Lapu-Lapu.

Lapu-Lapu residents can no longer vote for any elective position in the province after it was declared as highly urbanized city last year, but it has a total number of 167,085 registered voters in 30 barangays and has 190 clustered precincts in 38 voting centers.

This leaves the province with only 2,319 clustered precincts and 1,077 voting centers in 1,093 barangays.

Mandaue has the most number of registered voters with 182,813, followed by Talisay City with a 103,111 voting population, Toledo City with 101,713 and Danao City with 78,686 registered voters.

In the municipalities, Consolacion has the biggest number of registered voters with 55,433 while Tudela has the lowest number with 8,066 registered voters. — Elly Bolonos/BRP (THE FREEMAN)