300,000 voters delisted in Eastern Visayas

TACLOBAN CITY, Jan. 12 (PNA) - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has deleted nearly 300,000 names from the list of voters for the 2016 elections in Eastern Visayas in an effort to clean its record.

Comelec Regional Director Jose Nick Mendros said 81,000 names were removed from the voters’ list for failure to complete biometrics registration.

“These people cannot blame us because we have given ample time to complete the biometrics registration. We also launched a massive information drive to make them aware and satellite registration for their convenience,” Mendros added.

The poll body also removed about 200,000 names for failure to vote in the past two national and local elections.

Under Section 27 of Republic Act 8189 or The Voter's Registration Act "any person who did not vote in the two successive preceding regular elections as shown by their voting records" will be delisted.

Included in the more than 200,000 voters are deceased persons and those who migrated out of the region.

With the updating of records, the region has now 2,698,880 voters with Leyte having the most number of registered voters among six provinces at 1,151,497.

The remaining voters are in Samar (490,421), Northern Samar (386,163), Eastern Samar (300,818), Southern Leyte (261,418), and Biliran (108,833).

The region’s 2.69 million people will cast their votes to fill in the 1,454 seats being aspired by 3,436 candidates.

Of the number, 28 candidates are contesting for seats in the House of Representative, 19 for governors, 12 for vice governors, 126 for provincial boards, 339 for city and town mayors, 318 for vice mayors, and 2,594 for city and town councils. (PNA)
JBP/SARWELL Q. MENIANO