DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/01 July) – The Commission on Elections office in the city has fallen short of its target to register at least 1,000 new voters daily since the start of registration on May 6 for the 2016 elections.
Lawyer Danilo Cullo, election officer of Comelec Davao City First District, said Monday that despite barangay notifications, only 4,287 new voters had registered from May 6 to June 1.
He added that at least 1,000 voters should register daily for the three districts in the city.
The Comelec has targeted to register some 1.5 million young voters in Davao City.
The Davao Region has 10,980 new registrants, including those who would vote for the first time in 2016.
The biometrics registration for old voters who either lack biometrics or have none at all also started on May 6.
Cullo said the city has 300,000 such voters but as of June 1 only 11,537 had come to have their biometrics taken.
Republic Act 10367 or the Mandatory Biometrics Registration Act of 2013 provides that voters without biometrics and those with incomplete biometrics data will be removed from the voters list and can no longer vote in the May 2016 elections.
Cullo said the number of voters will decrease because of the lack of biometrics.
In 2007, the files of Comelec Davao were corrupted causing the loss of biometrics data, although the voters list was preserved, he explained.
He said he could not give a hundred-percent assurance that the new files would be safeguarded but he personally saves back up files daily.
“Let’s help clean our voters list by registering now,” Cullo said.
The Comelec recently said there were 9,301,386 voters who did not have biometrics data.
Quezon City has the second biggest number of voters (269,675) who are either without or with incomplete biometrics.
Meanwhile, National Youth Commission commissioner-at-large Dingdong Dantes took the lead in the Comelec registration at SM City Davao on Tuesday.
Elmer Argaño, Dantes’ executive assistant said Monday Davao City is the first city where the actor campaigned to encourage the youth to register. He will be Cagayan de Oro City in August for the same mission. (Lorie Ann Cascaro/MindaNews)