At least five million voters have been “padded” to the more than 50 million listed for the May 10 automated elections, a multi-sectoral poll watchdog bared on Tuesday. In a phone interview with GMANews.TV, Kontra Daya lead convenor Archbishop Oscar Cruz said not all of the 50,723,734 registered voters are real. “The estimate of all voters registered combined is padded ... the list of voters is padded by five million.” Cruz said he got the information from a “well-respected” former commissioner of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). “That is the estimate that she has and I got that in writing. Nung nawala na siya sa Comelec, hindi na tinuloy yung (when she left the Comelec, they were not able to push through with the) cleansing,” he said. Cruz said these five million “extra votes” probably came from those who registered twice or more, and those who are still listed despite being dead or convicted. Cruz said the alleged padding was not done on purpose in many cases. “Not all were done on purpose, except for the flying voters,” he said. Cruz, however, said they will not report their findings to the Comelec, adding that they are leaving it to the poll body's initiative to look into the matter since the total figure of registered voters came from the commission itself. Comelec chairman Jose Melo, meanwhile, was surprised at Cruz's revelation. “Where did they get that figure? Five million sobra-sobra (is too much),” he said in a separate interview. Melo maintained that they have already cleansed the voters' list. He said that in the case of multiple registrants, they only consider the latest registration. Earlier, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said there were more than 40,000 “double registrants” in Davao City and Davao del Sur. It expects to unearth more as reports from their volunteers come in.
