VOTE PILIPINAS ROADSHOW. Some mall goers at SM Center Dagupan participate in the Vote Pilipinas roadshow of the Commission on Elections Dagupan City. Elections officer Michael Franks Sarmiento said those who participated in the event were taught how to properly shade the name of candidates and feed their ballots at the vote counting machine. (Photo by Liwayway M. Yparraguirre)
DAGUPAN CITY — Some 138,721 registered residents are expected to cast their votes on May 9, this city having the highest number of voters in the province of Pangasinan.
From 119,000 voters in 2019, the number jumped to 138,721 for this year’s elections.
In an interview on Wednesday, city election officer Michael Franks Sarmiento attributed the increase to the number of registered Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) members about three years ago who had aged and qualified to be regular voters.
“Also, this past registration period, 80 percent of the registrants were youths,” he said.
Sarmiento said the dramatic increase in the number of voters was also due to the strategy his office implemented in 2019 which was satellite registrations in schools.
“The city Comelec (Commission on Elections) went to the schools and conducted satellite registration to make the registration procedure accessible to everyone. We targeted the youths. We made sure that we covered all the secondary schools. It helped to somehow decongest the crown in our office,” he added.
Among the other localities in the province with a high number of registered voters are San Carlos City with 126,283, Urdaneta City with 95,971, Malasiqui with 85,815, Bayambang with 83,083, Lingayen with 72,144, Mangaldan with 67,912, Calasiao with 66,126, Binmaley with 63,908, and Alaminos City with 62,546.
Meanwhile, the Comelec said face shields, vaccination cards, and coronavirus disease 2019 tests are not required to vote on Monday. (PNA)
