Comelec registration hits 1 million new voters

LIST UP AND VOTE A student heads for the registration booth at the National University in Sampaloc, Manila. —RICHARD A. REYES

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said there are more than a million registration applicants, barely a month after the registration period started on Feb. 12.

Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia said on Saturday as of March 6, a total of 1,027,572 applications were processed nationwide in Comelec offices, satellite centers and “Register Anywhere Program” (RAP) stations.

The top five regions with the most applicants were Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) with 187,372; Metro Manila, 156,990, Central Luzon, 111,681; Central Visayas, 79,552; and Davao, 63,998.

The Comelec is targeting 3 million new voters for next year’s midterm elections. The registration period ends on Sept. 30, 2024.

The poll body has opened RAP stations in malls, government offices and big companies to help potential voters unable to go back to their native towns in the provinces to register as well as those wishing to transfer their voting precincts or reactivate their registrations.

“The Comelec will do all it can to make sure that every Filipino will be able vote. One Filipino, one vote-that is our advocacy,” Garcia said in a media interview in Marawi City on Saturday, where he oversaw the plebiscites for the creation of three barangays.

“We won’t allow even a single voter not being able to vote, because as we say, if one Filipino wasn’t able to vote, it’s one Filipino who was unable to speak his voice in our democracy,” he added.

New machines

If the Comelec achieves the targeted 3 million new voters, the number would add to the 65 million voters who registered for the last presidential election in 2022. During the last election, 37 million of voters were aged 18 to 41.

Comelec has not released a profile breakdown of the new voters, but given the country’s demographics, the voter profile for 2025 midterm elections are expected to be similar, as in earlier elections.

The hardware for the 2025 automated election system, on the other hand, are expected to be new.

‘Marred by glitches’

Last February, the poll body awarded an P18-billion service contract to a South Korean-led joint venture to provide 110,000 vote-counting machines, more than 100,000 ballot boxes, around 2,200 consolidation and canvassing servers and printers. The contract also includes paper for almost 74 million ballots.

The joint venture is comprised of the South Korean firm Miru Systems Co. Ltd. and local companies Integrated Computer Systems, St. Timothy Construction Corp. and Centerpoint Solutions Technologies Inc.

There were some warnings that Miru’s involvement in elections in Iraq, Kyrgyzstan and the Congo were marred by glitches traced to their hardware, but Comelec said it would demonstrate the system in Congress this month.

The joint venture had already made an end-to-end demonstration of their automated voting system with all parties that participated in the demonstration showing no objections.

READ: Comelec launches ‘Register Anywhere’

On Friday, Comelec said it conducted a line-by-line review of its contract with the Miru joint venture and the group also posed no objections and accepted the contract in its entirety.

Comelec added it has extended its gratitude to the four-company consortium for the seamless contract review and announced that it would sign the service contract on Monday, March 11, at the Comelec’s head office in Intramuros, Manila.