Comelec purges almost 600,000 overseas voters

ELECTIONS officials have purged almost 600,000 overseas voters from the voters’ list for failing to vote in the country’s past two elections, according to separate memos issued this month.

The Commission on Elections ordered the deactivation of 313,101 overseas voters in a Nov. 8 memo and 265,084 more in a Nov. 13 order for failing to vote in the 2016 and 2019 elections.

The agency ordered the Office of Overseas Voting to remove their names from the overseas database.

The election body earlier said the registration of Filipinos overseas for the May 2022 presidential elections would run from Dec. 16 to Sept. 30, 2021. — Gillian M. Cortez