BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Commission on Elections announced yesterday that the voter turnout for the May 9 elections in Negros Occidental, excluding the highly urbanized city of Bacolod, was at 83 percent.
Of the 1.6 million voters in Negros Occidental, acting Provincial Comelec supervisor Atty. Roberto Salazar said that about 1.3 million voters, equivalent to 83 percent, voted during the polls.
Salazar said the data is based on the certificates of canvass generated by the Consolidation and Canvassing System (CCS) of the Commission on Elections.
On the other hand, the highly urbanized Bacolod City has more than 300,000 voters, Comelec records show.
Salazar said he could not say if the voter turnout for this year’s elections increased compared to the 2016 presidential elections.
But he noted there is high voter turnout during the presidential elections compared to midterm polls.
In 2016, the voter turnout was at 83. 95 percent or 1,396,442 Negrenses out of the 1,663,495 registered voters who cast their votes, according to data from the COMELEC website.
Negros Occidental, including Bacolod City, has almost two million registered voters, ranking as the sixth among the vote rich provinces in the country.*
