Online voter registration still unlikely for 2025 elections, says Comelec

Commission on Elections Chairman George Garcia. Senate PRIB photo / Bibo Nueva España

MANILA, Philippines — Online registration for new voters is not likely to be implemented in 2024, or the registration time for the May 2025 elections, said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday.

“As far as the Comelec is concerned, online registration may not be planned by the commission during the resumption of the registration by February next year,” said Comelec chair George Carcia during a Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation hearing.

“…so if we’re going to resume by February of next year in preparation for the 2025 elections, the automated and online system of registration may not be possible simply because under Republic Act (RA) 8189, registration voters will really still have to appear personally in our registration sites,” he added.

According to Garcia, under RA 8189, new voter registrants are required to appear personally during registration for the sake of biometrics — fingerprints, pictures, and signatures.

When asked if registrants can instead provide their biometrics online, Garcia explained that this might lead to complications regarding the voters’ own identity, as it will be hard to verify whether the one who submitted the biometrics is indeed the registrant.

Apart from this, Garcia also said that new voters are required to register under oath, which would be difficult to do online.

Committee chairman Senator Imee Marcos then asked whether it was possible for Filipinos already registered to the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) biometric systems to have their data transferred to Comelec.

“For purposes of data-sharing, we can always enter into [a] data-sharing agreement with the PSA  (Philippine Statistics Authority) for purposes of the PhilSys, however, unfortunately, they still have to appear before the Comelec because all applications must be under oath,” said Garcia.

“Even if PSA will share with us the biometrics of these voters, and for those who got their PhilSys ID, they still have to go to the Comelec because their application would be useless without being administered the oath,” he added.

Marcos then suggested utilizing online oath-taking, to which Garcia replied that the Comelec would still have to study the possibility.

“That is possible, but we will study the possibility further,” he said.

It can be recalled that the Comelec last held its voter registration from Dec. 12, 2022, to Jan. 31, 2023, for the 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections.

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