Around 3.8 million registered voters may be disenfranchised in the national and local elections in 2016 if they fail to have their biometrics taken, a Commission on Elections official said on Friday. In his personal Twitter account, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the 3.8-million registered voters without biometrics would not be able to vote if they would fail to come to a Comelec registration satellite booth within three months. Since the Comelec started the satellite registrations in all shopping malls nationwide, it has been able to take the biometrics of 500,000 registered voters.
Comelec chairman Andres Bautista said the majority or 80-percent of the people who were coming to the satellite registration areas were new voters instead of the old voters needing to have their biometrics taken. “There are more new voters registering than those validating. The ratio is about one is to five,” Bautista said.
He said some of the remaining 3.8-million registered voters might be dead or appeared to be flying voters, which might give the Comelec a chance to also clean their data.
Full Article: 3.8m registered Pinoys may lose voting rights – The Standard.