Comelec delists 7,000 Dagupan City voters

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has removed more than 7,000 voters from the voters’ list of this city for failing to vote in the last two polls.

Lawyer Remarque Ravanzo, city election officer, yesterday said the Election Registration Board, in a recent meeting, deemed it proper to “deactivate” these voters.

Based on the last elections, Ravanzo said Dagupan has about 90,000 voters but this will decrease in the next polls with the delisting of the 7,000 voters.

He said some city residents failed to vote in last year’s automated polls – the first in the country – possibly due to the long queues in the polling precincts.

Add to that the controversial barangay polls in October last year where 40,000 ballots for Dagupan did not arrive on time, resulting in the postponement of elections in a number of barangays, Ravanzo added. 

Nevertheless, Ravanzo urged the public to go to the Comelec office to register, revalidate or reactivate their status to avoid problems come election time. 

The Comelec office is open from Mondays to Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Registration is ongoing until Oct. 31, 2012.  

Meanwhile, the “voter search” feature of the Comelec software can immediately detect if a person is already registered in a certain area, thus helping weed out flying voters.

Ravanzo said the Comelec has been instituting reforms in its programs to protect its integrity. 

“Anyone who wishes to register in a certain locality must bring his transfer certificate from his original area because we can detect if he is already registered somewhere else,” Ravanzo said. 

This way, the Comelec can weed out flying voters and double registrants, he added.

In implementing Republic Act 8189 or the Continuing Registration Act, voters are urged to undergo revalidation where their pictures and biometrics will be taken.  

The Comelec started the Automatic Fingerprint Identification Scan last year.

However, almost 20,000 voter’s ID cards have remained unclaimed despite notices given to barangay heads, Ravanzo said.