Comelec office. FILE PHOTO
With only four months to go for voters’ registration for the 2016 polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is stepping up efforts to inform voters to have their biometrics data taken.
“We’re sending letters to inform the people that they need to have their biometrics data taken in order to avoid being deactivated,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said.
Biometrics data refer to the automated identification of an individual, particularly his or her photograph, fingerprint and signature.
Some 4.3 million registered voters face disenfranchisement because they don’t have biometrics data, the poll body said.
READ: Comelec reiterates appeal to public to have biometrics taken
In addition, more than half a million registered voters have incomplete biometrics data and need to repeat the validation process.
Jimenez said the information campaign started last year but would be accelerated as the deadline for the registration period neared. The registration period for the 2016 national and local elections is until
Oct. 31.
Registered voters need not wait for the Comelec letters before having their biometrics taken.
“If they know that they have no biometrics or if they are just curious, they can absolutely go on their own without waiting for the letter from the Comelec,” he said.
Republic Act No. 10367, or the Mandatory Biometrics Registration Act of 2013, provides that voters who fail to submit for validation before the May 2016 elections, shall be deactivated from the voters’ list and shall not be allowed to vote.
Majority in Calabarzon
Based on the latest figures from the Comelec, a total of 4,326,655 voters are without biometrics.
The majority of them are in Calabarzon with 603,425, followed by Metro Manila with 455,699, Central Luzon with 417,793, Bicol region with 362,869, Central Visayas with 316,714, and Davao region with 312,265.
Another 550,341 registered voters have incomplete biometrics data.
“When that happens, the Comelec informs the registrant to return and submit for a re-capture of biometrics data,” Jimenez said.
The Zamboanga Peninsula has the biggest number of incomplete biometrics data with 190,421, followed by Northern Mindanao, 62,626; Metro Manila, 58,709; Calabarzon, 39,534; and Central Luzon, 30,030.
As of April, there were a total of 45,878,755 registered voters with complete biometrics data.
Reversal possible
Jimenez said the disqualification of Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp. from the bidding for optical mark readers (OMRs) could be reversed after the multinational firm managed to address concerns regarding its OMR units.
“That’s certainly a possibility because the basis of the disqualification is one thing and if that one thing is proven not to exist, then why would you disqualify it?” Jimenez said.
Last month, the Comelec bids and awards committee (BAC) disqualified Smartmatic-TIM after its demo machine failed to meet the requirement to have at least two storage devices and the capability to write on the devices all data/files, audit log, statistics and ballot images simultaneously.
Smartmatic-TIM subsequently filed a protest of its disqualification in the post-qualification evaluation stage of the public bidding in the Comelec en banc.
Machine demo
The second round of public bidding for the 23,000 OMR machines became necessary after Smartmatic-TIM’s bid was disqualified, thereby resulting in a failed bidding.
On Tuesday, Smartmatic-TIM held a demonstration of its machine at the Comelec. Personnel of the firm opened the machine, ran a ballot through it and saved the data while showing the behavior of the secure digital memory cards in the ports.
“We were able to show that at any given point, all the transactions in the machines that we are proposing to the Comelec stored the data simultaneously,” said Cesar Flores, Smartmatic-TIM president for Asia-Pacific.
Flores expressed confidence that the company had convinced the Comelec en banc to reverse BAC’s previous ruling.
Concerns addressed
During the demonstration, Comelec–Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) chair Peter Banzon said the concerns raised regarding the Smartmatic-TIM machines had been addressed.
“This display of simultaneous writing … it satisfies the requirement,” Banzon told members of the commission en banc led by Comelec Chair Andres Bautista.
But despite Banzon’s opinion, Jimenez said it was still up to the commission en banc to decide on the fate of Smartmatic-TIM’s protest.
Jimenez said the second round of public bidding for the P2.5-billion project would push through.
Hybrid system
The Comelec is considering a hybrid system as an option for the elections next year.
Former Comelec Commissioner Gus Lagman proposed a hybrid system called precinct automated tallying system in which the counting of votes is done manually and projected on a large screen for the public to see before transmission of the count.
Lagman said this was a better and cheaper way than Smartmatic’s precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines used in the previous elections.
More expensive
But Smartmatic said the hybrid method was not cheaper than automated elections. “First fact is that they’re going to have to triple the number of precincts so from around 80,000 precincts, which you are currently using, you’re going to have around 250,00 precincts,” Flores said at a media forum on Tuesday.
He added that the government could spend about P12 billion for the salaries of additional inspectors.
“How is that ever cheaper than the machines that have been purchased for P5 million combining the 2010 and 2013 elections?” he said.
“And it’s not really transparent, it is going to create more vulnerabilities going back to the system where the votes can be manipulated by whoever is counting and encoding the votes,” Flores added.
UK Lord Smartmatic chair
Asked what the best bargain was for the Philippines in the upcoming polls, Smartmatic chair Lord Mark Malloch-Brown said the most practical and cost effective way was to refurbish the existing PCOS machines and buy supplementary ones to increase coverage.
READ: Only Smartmatic bought bid documents for new voting machines
After the Supreme Court temporarily stopped the Comelec-Smartmatic repair deal last month, Brown said he hoped the company would still be allowed to maintain its own machines because it had the capacity and the original parts for the units.
“These machines were used for two days during the previous elections and they are considered young and have a lot of life left in them,” he said.
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