1,600 city voters fail to beat last night's deadline

DEADLINE BEATERS. City Comelec Registrar Ariel Celna (inset) personally supervised the last hours of registration at the city Comelec
offices last night where some 1,600 qualified voters can no longer be accommodated.    

Some 1,600 qualified voters in the city failed to register as the closing of registration period came to an end at midnight last night.

"We were disappointed," said young voters who expressed excitement to exercise their right of suffrage in next year's elections when interviewed by dyRD's top-rated "Tagbilaran-By-Nite" radio program last night.

The deadline beaters were among those who jammed the city offices of the Commission on Elections last night.

Comelec Registrar Ariel Celna expects voters in the city to increase from 40,046 in 2007 elections to 49,600 for next year's election.

As of the last election board hearing last Oct 19, the voters list already revealed some 46,600 city electorates.
          
Celna told the Chronicle that with only one computer/machine at the city Comelec office, it was impossible to accommodate the deadline beaters.
The request for an additional machine was not granted by Comelec central offices.         

LABARIA

He estimated some 170 voters accommodated/registered daily by the machine. However, they were able to accommodate some 400 voters yesterday as the office was opened up to midnight last night.

Meanwhile, Prov'l Comelec Supervisor Eliseo Labaria, in a separate interview said he expects a 10 percent increase in the entire province.

In 2007, there were 696,445 voters, he recalled.

He expects the total for next year's election at 750,000 voters. Awareness on the people's sacred right to vote seems to draw more voters to the Comelec offices during the last few days of the registration period.

However, the Comelec official admitted that even as he witnessed a heavy influx of new voters, figures would show that only 50 percent of the expected new registrants came out to register until yesterday's deadline.

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