The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) clarified today that the reported 53,325 names removed from the voters’ list in Bacolod are registered voters who failed to vote during the May 2007 midterm elections and in the October 2007 Barangay elections.

COMELEC spokesman Dir. James Jimenez, however, assured the public that the move from the poll body to deactivate registered voters is “above board and actually a part of efforts to cleanse the voters list.”

“The numbers of deactivated voters may appear to be big, but we have to take into account the fact that there were two elections in 2007. So if voters failed to vote in both electoral exercises, the COMELEC will have to deactivate them. It’s in the law,” Jimenez explains.

Section 27 of Republic Act No. 8189 or the Continuing Registration Act provides that the COMELEC shall deactivate the registration and remove the registration records of persons “who did not vote in the two (2) successive preceding regular elections as shown by their voting records.”

Regular elections, the Act further stated, does not include the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.

“But the registered voters who were deactivated from the voters’ list will be immediately notified by mail by the COMELEC. We will advise them to reactivate their voters’ registration record as soon as possible so that they may be able to vote in the May 10, 2010 national and local elections.”

The COMELEC spokesman further noted that there is in fact “ample time” for deactivated voters to apply for reactivation because the voters’ registration period will run until December 15, 2009.####