Overseas voter registration sets new record

Overseas voter registration that started on December 1 last year and will end on September 30, 2018, has set a new record for first quarter performance, the Overseas Voting Secretariat announced March 15.

The drive has garnered a total of 67,497 new overseas voter registrants for purposes of the 2019 elections.

It has surpassed the numbers of the first three months of 2014-15 registration (64,074) and the previous record of 64,917 that was set in 2009.

The attainable target for this registration period is 1.1 million OV registrants, which would net a cumulative total of 2,130,000 active registered voters for the coming national elections.

The overseas voter registration in preparation for the 2016 elections netted a cumulative total of 1,376,067 active registered overseas voters. The 826,881 new registrants for the 2016 elections, was more than a 100% increase over the 398,554 new registrants for the 2013 elections.

Of the almost 1.4 million registered overseas voters, 590,440 were in the Middle East and Africa, 334,215 in the Asia Pacific, 263,316 in the Americas, 138,757 in Europe, and 49,339 were Seabased.