Election cheaters start early in Zamboanga

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Cheats tried but failed to hoodwink election registrars into listing them on the voters’ list during the first day of the Commission on Elections’ registration of new voters here, a Comelec official said.

Joseph Ian Tria, election officer of the Comelec’s District 2, said among the more than 100 people who flocked to their office were underaged persons passing themselves off as qualified registrants.

Under the law, a person may be listed as voter in regular elections only if he or she has reached the age of 18. But Tria said a number of those who tried to register were not even 18.

“Some minors have tried to pass themselves off as legitimate voters but are actually underaged and cannot vote in the 2016 elections,” he said.

Tria said there were also people from other areas who wanted to register as Zamboanga City voters.

He said Comelec personnel also discovered two incidents of persons trying to register using other people’s names.

One of them was a woman who wanted to register using her sister’s name.

These instances were discovered after a thorough check conducted on the Comelec database of voters’ information, he added.

But Tria said the attempts to register illegally may not have been aimed at rigging the results of the 2016 elections as much as trying to obtain a certificate of registration for work purposes or for travel abroad.

A voter’s ID is among the things private establishments and government offices require of jobs applicants. It is also among documents that can be used in securing passports from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Tria said their office also processed voters just wanting to update their records with the Comelec on Tuesday.

These voters are among at least 41,000 people at risk of being stricken off the voters’ list because they had incomplete data with the poll body or had failed to vote in the last two elections.

Tria said to prevent possible attempts to pad the voters’ list, Comelec personnel were now stricter, even as more new registrants were expected in the coming days.

“We are expecting more people to register because of the upcoming Presidential elections,” he said.