Comelec-South Cotabato’s operational and administrative coverage comprises this city and the province’s 10 towns and lone city.
Based on the Comelec’s data, South Cotabato and this city have total established precincts of 4,927 and 893 clustered precincts in 368 voting centers.
The official said the decline in the area’s number of voters was mainly due to the purging of 75,606 voters in the city.
From the listed 309,543 registered voters in 2010, Gerada said the city’s number of voters for the upcoming May 13 midterm local and national elections has gone down to 233,937.
But the number of voters in South Cotabato has increased to 435,495, which is 5,635 higher than the total voters for the previous polls, he said.
“(The decline) was mainly due to the exclusion of the multiple registrants, deceased persons and those who either failed to vote in the two previous elections or did not validate their registrations,” Gerada told MindaNews.
The official said they were able to weed out a significant number of multiple registrants through the Comelec’s automated voter’s information database.
During the validation of the voter’s list, he said they found out that some voters have multiple registration records and have even used different identities.
“But when we compared their pictures in our database, we found out that we’re looking at just one person,” Gerada said.[]
The official said that aside from the 105 alleged “flying voters” that were earlier nullified in Tampakan town, there were no other cases of exclusions recorded in the area due to questionable voter’s registration applications.
He said they were not aware whether the excluded voters or their petitioners in Tampakan town have elevated the matter to the courts.
Based on Comelec rules, concerned persons or parties may seek the intervention of a local court on matters regarding the exclusion or inclusion of a voter.
“If the concerned parties have filed petitions before the court, either for inclusion or exclusion, then it’s already out of our hands,” Gerada explained.
Tampakan’s election registration board (ERB) earlier removed the 105 applicants from its list of registered voters after failing to prove their legitimacy as residents of the area.[]
