Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2T applicants beat deadline
CEBU City poll offices are expecting to register 2,000 more voters up to Jan. 7, after they were able to make it to the Dec. 31 deadline for registration.
With five days left before the last day of the completion of registration, election officers appealed to the registrants to finish the process as soon as possible.
“We hope they won’t wait for the last day kay basin ig Jan. 7 magpanon na sad ang mga tawo unya dili na sad sila mahuman magpa-register (We don’t want them lining up on Jan. 7 and not finishing their registration),” said Marchel Sarno, north district election officer.
He said they will no longer accommodate those who don’t complete registration by Jan. 7.
After last Sunday’s 10 a.m. cut-off time for the use of the data capturing machines (DCMs), 2,056 registrants, who lined up within the 30-meter radius of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) offices, were still accommodated and were given registration forms.
Their names were listed in the logbook so they can complete their registration this week.
Of the number, 1,361 will register at the south district office, while 695 will register at the north district office.
They have been asked to return anytime between Jan. 2 and 7 to finish their registration, including the encoding of their biometrics and personal data in the DCMs.
But Leonel Marco Castillano, south district election officer, said he does not expect all 1,361 registrants to finish the process since some won’t bother to return.
As of last October, the Comelec Cebu City north district had 201,916 registered voters, while the south district had 234,000 voters as of July.
Sarno and Castillano said they could not give an estimate of the increase in the number of voters yet since they still have to collate the records of all those who registered during the last quarter of 2006.
“Surely there will be an increase because we have registered an average of 75 voters a day but we can’t tell yet how many we have so far,” Sarno said. (LCR)
