COTABATO CITY, Philippines -- The Commission on Elections said 18,983 voters have registered twice in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said the double registrants were discovered through Automated Fingerprint Identification System matching.

Jimenez said in order to have a clean computerized voters list, Comelec directed the deletion of the names with double/multiple registrants, he said.

“We’re removing all registrations subsequent to the first,” Jimenez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Saturday.

He said there would be a continuing registration on April 1, when they open the bids for automation of Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi Tawi and Shariff Kabunsuan.

The Comelec earlier announced that the sole bidder for the optical mark-reader (OMR) technology was disqualified.

The automation of elections in ARMM requires the use of direct recording electronic (DRE) technology in Maguindanao and the OMR technology in other five provinces of the ARMM.

The DRE uses touch-screen or touch-pad technology for voting, while OMR requires voters to fill up a paper-based ballot which is fed to a specially designed machine, similar to a scanner.

On the other hand, the OMR technology involves the use of paper ballots which are then fed to an automated counting machine.

The Department of Budget and Management has allocated P867 million for the automation of the elections in ARMM in August.