THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said 56 percent of voters in the forthcoming May 9 national and local elections will be aged 41 years old and below.

“This is a very interesting development. It’s good for the country. I think it is important to note that the youth are the prime movers of this coming elections,” Elections spokesman James Jimenez said in a virtual meeting.

In a data released by the Comelec, out of the 65,721,230 registered voters, there are 37,015,901 voters that are aged 18 to 41 years old, or 56 percent of the voting population.

Comparatively, there are 16,779,621 registered voters for those aged 42 to 57 years old, and 11,925,708 registered voters aged 58 years old and above.

In a related development, the Comelec reported that 17,502,631 ballots have already been printed by the National Printing Office (NPO). This is already 25.95 percent of the 67,442,714 total ballots to be printed for the poll exercise.

Already printed are the 60,000 for local absentee voting, 79,080 for manual overseas voting, and 1,618,122 for automated overseas voting.

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao also has 2,588,193 printed ballots; 86,280 for the 63 barangays of North Cotabato; 2,298,930 for Zamboanga Peninsula; 3,060,485 for Northern Mindanao; 3,236,251 for Davao Region; 2,606,492 for Soccsksargen; and 1,868,798 for Caraga.

The Comelec and the NPO are looking to complete ballot printing on April 21, at the latest.

(G. Naval, Malaya)