AN OFFICIAL of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced the number of registered voters in the two districts of Zamboanga City have increased by 31,281 from the previous 436,254.

Lawyer Stephen Roy Cañete, first district election officer, said the registered voters in the first district has increased by 14,248 from 226,064 to 240,312 electorates.

The voters in the second district has increased by 17,033 to 227,223 from the previous 210,190 voters, he added.

Meanwhile, Cañete said that the application of 2,000 people to register were turned down after it was discovered they were multiple registrants.

He added they were discovered to be multiple registrants through the conduct of Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Afis) at the Comelec central office.

Cañete said the conduct of Afis is to ensure that a registered voter will only vote once.

The Afis is a biometric identification methodology that uses digital imaging technology to obtain, store, and analyze fingerprint data.

Cañete said those whose applications were disapproved were found either registered in the nearby areas of the region.

He said the Afis was conducted following the conduct of registration of new voters from July 2 to September 29, 2018.