Comelec getting ready for new ARMM voter registration

MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections is readying power generators for the scheduled re-registration of voters in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao because of frequent brownouts or power outages, a Comelec official said Saturday.

Election Commissioner Elias Yusoph said the Comelec was preparing the generator sets in light of the  erratic supply of electricity in Mindanao.

“You know in Mindanao, the electricity is abnormal. If there is no brownout you’ll even ask why there is no brownout?” Yusoph said in an interview.

Yusoph said the voter re-registration was tentatively scheduled from July 9 to 18 with personnel from Visayas and Mindanao’s non-ARMM areas set to augment the Comelec personnel in ARMM.

The Comelec is also set to purchase more than 1,000 additional voter registration machines aside from the ones currently assigned to each municipality and city in the region, Yusoph said.

“We have enough time to prepare… even before the Senate resolution, we were already contacting some companies, asking if they can produce these … machines given the time constraints,” he said.

Earlier, the Senate adopted a resolution calling on the Comelec to nullify the voters list of the ARMM and conduct a new general registration of voters in the region.

The resolution said this would put an end to fraud  and other  irregularities in the conduct of elections in the ARMM, notorious for wholesale cheating during elections.

The Comelec agreed to do the general re-registration after being assured by senators that it would have enough funds for additional voter registration machines.