(Prensa Latina) - "Venezuela's National Election Council (CNE) is updating voter registration as it readies for a referendum on a project to reform the 1999 Constitution.

The CNE has activated 2,000 nationwide centers, including 1,131 fixed and 869 mobile to update the final voters' registration list for December.

The National Registration list of 16.9 million voters includes 162,801 foreigners without the legal right to vote, so their exclusion cuts the actual list to 15.9 million.

Still, the above represents an increase of 9,000 people compared to the list for last December's presidential race and since the current population is around 27 million the total number of Venezuelan voters should be around 16.7 million.

National Assembly (AN) president Cilia Flores said that, with the draft Constitution completed early in November, the Election Commission has a 30-day deadline to hold the referendum, tentatively in December".