LEGAZPI CITY July 30(PNA) -- The Commission on Election (Comelec) in Bikol has successfully purged close to 200,000 voters' names considered by the poll body as double registrants or commonly called "flying voters" from the official voters lists across the region.
Lawyer Zacarias Zaragoza, Comelec regional director, said some 172,463 dubious names were removed from the official voters lists as part of the agency's continuing cleansing process.
He said the cleansing process is in anticipation of the automated 2010 national and local election.
Comelec records indicated that in 2007 national elections there were 2.6 million registered voters in Bikol.
With the cleansing of voters lists, the number of registered voters in the region went down to 2.4 million as of April 30 this year
Despite the purging of the official voters list of dubious registrants the Comelec, Zaragoza said, anticipates an increase in the region's voters' lists because of new registrants from the youth.
"We have noted an increasing trend of new registrants among the youth since the month of May this year," he said.
He said if the trend continues, Bicol would have at least 2.8 million to three million voters in the upcoming May 2010 election.
He said the increasing trends are most noted in the provinces of Camarines Sur and Albay.
Comelec records showed that Camarines Sur has the biggest number of villages with 1,063. It has 3,951 voting precincts, followed by Albay with 720 villages with 3,300 precincts.
Masbate has 550 villages with 1,940 precincts; Sorsogon has 541 villages with 1,791 precincts; Camarines Norte has 282 villages with 1,091 precincts; and Catanduanes has 315 villages with 680 precincts.
Some 1.9 million or 76 percent of the 2.6 million total registered voters in Bicol participated in the May 14, 2007 elections. (PNA)