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Almost 2,000 persons in Cebu lost the chance to vote in next year's election after failing to make the cut-off period for registration in the Oct 31 deadline.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) provincial supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said most of those unable to register came from Lapu-Lapu City with 1,000 individuals.
About 500 failed to register in Cebu City and another 100 residents in Consolacion town.
“Let's not cast the blame on our office for turning them away. The Comelec lacks machines. Why would they register on the deadline itself?” Castillano said in Cebuano.
After the 10-month registration process ended Oct. 31, Castillano said Comelec expects a 10 percent increase of voters in Cebu, which had 2.1 million voters in the 2007 elections.
The last-minute registrants were on site but Castillano said their staff could not entertain all of them since the Comelec had to end their registration at 12 midnight.
In Cebu City the cutoff time was 3 p.m. in the north district and 8 p.m. in the south district.
There’s nothing he could do about it, said Castillano.
“That’s the truth. If we didn't turn them away we would only give them false hope and then they won't register,” he said.
Castillano said there was no order from the central office to list down those within the premises during the 12 midnight deadline or allow them to finish registration in the following week.
He said this system was only allowed in areas of Luzon where power outages occurred because of typhoon Santi.
Castillano said he noticed that many of those who showed up and were no longer accommodated on the last day were young employees.
Castillano said Comelec was not remiss in its job because registration started last Dec. 2.
During the early months, only a few registrants showed up, he said.
However, Castillano admitted that Comelec had only a few machines at their disposal for biometrics data capture, which includes photos and fingerprints.
Only the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu have two machines each. Each unit could accommodate about 300 registrants per day.
