NEARLY five million registered voters have been deactivated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), meaning they cannot cast their ballots in the May 2025 national and local polls.
Comelec data showed a total of 4,903,415 voters have been delisted as of April 15, after the 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls.
In a statement, the poll body said majority (4,898,744) of those deactivated failed to vote in two successive preceding regular elections as shown by their voting records.
There were also 3,663 voters, who were deactivated in accordance with court orders to exclude them, while another 1,003 voters failed to validate their records.
Other reasons for deactivation included loss of Filipino citizenship (three), sentenced by final judgment to suffer imprisonment for not less than one year (one), and sentenced by final judgment of having committed a crime involving disloyalty to the duly constituted government (one).
Calabarzon had the most number of deactivated voters with 733,903 registration records.
More than half a million voters were also deactivated in the National Capital Region 618,121 and Central Luzon 503,297.
Other regions with a high number of deactivated voters are Western Visayas 384,001, Central Visayas 363,968, and Bicol Region 315,971.
To recall, there were 67,839,861 registered voters during the 2023 barangay and youth polls.
Voter registration activities, including reactivation of registration records, for the May 2025 polls, on the other hand, are ongoing until September 30, 2024.
The figure is expected to increase as the Election Registration Boards have so far submitted only 98.82 percent of the data.
However, the Comelec chief assured that deactivated voters could still submit an application for reactivation during the ongoing voter registration.