Members of the Bacolod City Election Registration Board will hold a special hearing tomorrow to approve the application of 8,212 voters, who registered during the extended list-up from October 11 to 30.
The Commission on Elections Bacolod also received yesterday a petition against 33 applicants, all from Barangay Bata, over their residency eligibility.
Bacolod Election Officer, Atty. Kathrina Trinio-Caña, said the registrants under protest will be summoned and will be asked to provide additional proofs of residency, or to bring a guarantor or witness.
In the ERB hearing Oct. 18 covering applicants from July 1 to Sept. 31, Caña said 99 protests were received out of the more than 20,000 registrants. After that hearing, most of the petitioners withdrew their protests, and only five applicants were eventually disqualified over their residency eligibility.
Meanwhile, the Bacolod Comelec is now in the process of d –etermining more clustered precincts for the May 9 National and Local Elections.
In the 2019 polls, Bacolod City had 826 precincts but Caña said the number will increase under the new guidelines of the Comelec, where each precinct should only cater to a maximum of 800 voters.
In 2019, there were up to 1,000 voters in every clustered precinct.
Bacolod City will have more than 320,000 voters in next year’s polls, from the 312,816 voters in the 2019 elections. — MML
