The Commission on Elections (Comelec) expects 65 million registered voters in the May 2022 polls.
In an online forum, Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez revealed that the number of registered voters at present is already nearing 63 million.
"Our initial projections were 59 million but right now we are almost at 63 million projected registered voters for 2022 with roughly 4.5 million new registrants already in the books," he said in an online forum on Tuesday, Oct. 26.
"This is incredible considering that this is a pandemic," added Jimenez.
The poll official said they were also expecting to get some 300,000 to 350,000 new registrants during the extended voter registration period.
"But now, we already have around 400,000 new registrants," said. Jimenez.
He said there are also around 1.6 million overseas registered voters.
"All in all, if you are going to have 63 million registered voters locally, and 1.6 million overseas, then we are looking at a voting population of almost 65 million voters and that's a huge percentage of our population," Jimenez said.
The extended voter registration will end on Oct. 30. Voter registration overseas ended Oct. 14.