Voter registration extended

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has extended the registration of new voters for one week, up to Nov. 9. The registration was supposed to end Friday.

"It is the desire of the Comelec not to disenfranchise any qualified voter, thus we are reaching out to them and extending our calendar to enable a greater number of registrants to list up," Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos said.

An estimated 43 million Filipinos — two million of them new voters — are expected to register for the May general elections next year.

Comelec offices will be closed on Friday until Sunday because of All Saints’ Day. The registration will resume on Monday.

For the first time, a computer system will be used to count the ballots in next year’s polls to eliminate fraud and speed up the tabulation of votes.

Under the current system, ballots are counted manually, a process that took weeks to complete. The system’s cumbersome process left opportunities to manipulate the outcome.

However, an unidentified Comelec official had earlier told The STAR that next year’s polls might be headed for disaster, citing poor information dissemination, weaknesses in the system and lack of time.

Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. also gave a similar warning, citing possible flaws in the Comelec’s new computer system.

He said some of the ballot counting machines failed in trials and the system might be vulnerable to manipulation.

Abalos dismissed the prediction and vowed to complete the count in five hours. He said the results would already be known by midnight on the day of the elections.

In January, President Arroyo ordered funds released for the modernization of the polls, saying she wanted it to be one of her legacies.