The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday stated the net registration for brand spanking new voters for the May 2025 elections just isn’t prone to be applied subsequent yr.
“If we are going to resume by February next year in preparation for the 2025 election, we would like to be candid that automated and online system of registration may not be possible,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia stated.
During a Senate committee listening to, Garcia cited Republic Act 8189 which states that people looking for to register should nonetheless seem personally earlier than registration websites.
“Voters will really still have to appear personally in our registration site in view of the biometrics that will be taken from these voters, the fingerprint, the pictures, as well as the signatures,” he stated.
“Likewise, the voters— when they submit their application for registration, these applications should all be under oath,” he added.
Garcia stated that if the candidates don’t personally seem, there can be a query on whether or not the biometrics offered actually got here from the candidates.
“It’s quite easy to get the images… and then your images can be sent to the Commission. However, when it comes to biometrics, it may happen that the voter who wanted to register online is not the same voter,” he stated.
Despite this, the Comelec chairman stated the ballot physique is open to getting into a data-sharing settlement with PhilSys to pave the way in which for the switch of biometrics to Comelec.
Garcia, nonetheless, stated all candidates for registration should nonetheless take their oaths personally.
“However, your honor, unfortunately, with all due respect, they will still have to appear before the Comelec because all applications for registration must be under oath,” he stated.
“And so even if the PSA will share with us the biometrics of these voters and for those who got the PhilSys ID, they would still have to go to Comelec because their application will be useless without being administered the oath,” he added.
Garcia additionally stated the Comelec will look into the potential of permitting candidates to take their oath by on-line means.
“That’s possible, but we will study further the possibility,” he stated.—AOL, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
