The Commission on Elections (Comelec) apologized and asked for understanding on Saturday, July 23 to those who were not able to make it on the last day of voter's registration.
In a statement sent by Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco, the poll body stated that part of its constitutional mandate is to lead by example in following laws pertaining to registration, elections, initiatives, plebiscites and referenda aside from enforcing them.
Comelec said that it is following two laws in the recently-concluded registration activities namely: RA11462 which states that the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections is scheduled on December 5, 2022 and RA8189 which does not allow voter's registration and creation as well as splitting of precincts 120 days before an election.
The 120th day before December 5 is August 7, which is why the receipt of applications for voter's registration is from July 4 to July 23 only, Comelec said. The final day of posting of the applications in public places is until July 25 and the final submission of oppositions for any application that the Comelec accepted is until July 28, 2022.
Meanwhile, the nationwide simultaneous election registration board hearing for all types of voter’s registration application that the Comelc has accepted (including transfer, reactivation, reinstatement, inclusion, overseas to local, correction/change of entries) will be conducted on August 1.
Because of this, Comelec explained has only four days from August 2 to August 6 to prepare the established precincts, split or create new precincts, subject all applications to the automated fingerprint identification system and approve the project of precincts.
Due to this, it added that the voter's registration must end on July 23 to finish all tasks and processes in accordance with the law.
On the other hand, Comelec reported that as of July 22, the number of new registratns has reached a total of 2,593,909. Of this, 1,615,144 are 15 to 17 years old; 840,085 are 18 to 30 years old while 138,680 are 31 years old and above.
This is well above the poll body's recalibrated target of new registrants for both Barangay and SK of 2,067,351 last July 19.
The initial target of Comelec was over 1 million new registrants.