FB pixel

Philippines’ Comelec ends biometrics registration for voters

| Justin Lee
Categories Biometrics News  |  Elections
 

The Philippines’ Commission on Elections (Comelec) denied requests for postponing the deadline for voter registration, thus ending the 17-month registration period on October 31 for the 2016 general elections, according to The Philippine Star.

Last week, Ang Kabataan party-list group called on the Philippines’ Supreme Court to urge the Commission on Elections to extend the registration period to January 8, citing technical difficulties of the biometrics registration technology.

“No extension. We gave the people a year and a half to register and validate their biometrics. I think we have done enough to let the people know about the registration,” said Comelec chairman Andres Bautista.

The agency did, however, extend the voters’ registration in some areas that were hit by Typhoon Lando in Cagayan Valley region.

Meanwhile, those citizens who did register and submit their biometrics with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) cannot yet be officially considered registered voters, according to a report by Inquirer.net.

The Comelec said that applications for registration forms (ARF) will still be required to go through the Election Registration Board’s (ERB) hearing process before their names will be added to the certified list of voters.

The ERB consists of a city or municipal election officer, a public school official and the local civil registrar.

“Many people who were able to register are saying that they are full-fledged voters already,” said Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez. “Technically speaking, they cannot be considered as such because their applications have yet to go through the ERB. Only after the ERB has heard and approved their voter applications can they say that they are valid voters.”

The Comelec previously projected that the number of registered voters for next year’s election will exceed the combined number of voters registered for the last two polls.

The ERB is authorized by the Comelec to hold a meeting to certify the list of voters until February 4, 2016, with the official list of voters posted on February 9.

Article Topics

 |   |   |   |   |   | 

Latest Biometrics News

 

Okta and Palo Alto Networks integrate enterprise digital identity, cybersecurity tools

Digital identity security tools from Okta have been integrated with cybersecurity software from Palo Alto Networks to protect corporate networks…

 

Pimeyes’ new tool will be able to search billions of faces through videos

Face image search engine Pimeyes has stirred controversy over its ability to pinpoint exactly where exactly on the vast internet…

 

Kazakhstan sees dramatic growth in digital government use

Kazakhstan is building out a tech ecosystem and digital government ranks among its priorities. In the first half of 2025,…

 

Bhutan upgrades digital identity wallet, including liveness and P2P chat

Bhutan has rolled out four major upgrades to its National Digital Identity (NDI) wallet with the enhancements aimed at strengthening…

 

Zimpler brings biometrics, regulatory checks to first user interaction with Zimpler ID+

Zimpler has unveiled its new identity layer that embeds biometric identification and regulatory checks into the very first user interaction:…

 

5M Ugandans renews national IDs, 100k new cards ready for pickup

Uganda’s National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) has announced that more than 5.3 million people have already renewed their national…

Comments

19 Replies to “Philippines’ Comelec ends biometrics registration for voters”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Continue Reading

Biometric Market Analysis

Most Viewed This Week

Featured Company

Learn More

Biometrics Insight, Opinion

Digital ID In-Depth

Biometrics White Papers

Biometrics Events