ARMM voters’ list cleared of multiple vote registrants, dead, minors

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections has been able to trim by more than 30 percent the number of names on the voter’s list of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said to be the ground zero of the “dagdag-bawas” (vote padding and shaving) operations in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Through the new registration of voters, the Comelec weeded out over hundreds of thousands of registrants who have long been dead, those who were not yet 18 years old and those who signed up in two or more precincts.  The ARMM is composed of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Acting ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that a Comelec report has pegged the number of voters in ARMM at 1.294 million from the 1.882 million in 2010 (which had been widely questioned by political pundits and statisticians) after conducting a general registration in July and processing the results last November.

“The results  are very revealing because these confirm everybody’s suspicion that the voter’s list has been bloated. This general registration should correct any manipulation made during the previous general registration under the past administration,” said Hataman.

Hataman said that the Comelec would continue to pursue the groups responsible for padding the voter’s list with dead, underage and multiple-voters in ARMM, which has given the region a bad reputation. “I hope that with the clean up of our voter’s list, we will be able to restore the good name of ARMM and its people,” said Hataman.

During the general registration from July 9 to 18, a total of 1,574,294 individuals lined up to put their names on the official registration, a big drop from the 1.882 million reported by the Comelec in 2010. After the public hearings conducted by the election registration board hearings from November 26 to 30, a total of 280,077 names were de-listed.  Of that number, 250,773 names figured in multiple registrations in different precincts and 29,304 names belonged to persons below 18 years old.

Hataman said the use of the Comelec’s Automated Fingerprinting Identification System (AFIS) was instrumental in culling the voter’s list of multiple registrants. “The use of this technology should ensure the integrity of the election results in our region,” said Hataman.

Based on data gathered from the Comelec, there were only 1.054 million voters in ARMM in 2004 that jumped by nearly 50 percent to 1.504 million in 2007 and another 25 percent to 1.882 million in 2010 — the fastest growing voter’s population among the 17 regions. There were 50.723 million voters in the Philippines as of 2010, up by 12.6 percent from 45.029 million in 2007.

Hataman noted that the purge of the ARMM voter’s list was one of the main reasons for the postponement of the ARMM elections scheduled in 2011 and synchronizing them with the 2013 mid-term elections. “I believe we have achieved one of the goals set by the President when he postponed the ARMM election to initiate reforms in the region. We could not have done it without the determination of our President and the new management  in Comelec,” said Hataman.