Comelec seeks P1.5 B for equipment that purges double registrants

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is hoping to purchase new election equipment to help purge double registrants even as its automated counting machines continue to gather dust in a warehouse somewhere.

Comelec Commissioner Mehol Sadain said the "matching equipment" would be covered by the P1.5 billion for the poll body’s modernization program in its 2006 budget now up for approval in Congress.

"We need the matching equipment so that our data capturing machines would not be put to waste. Without it, our program to computerize the voters’ list would be useless," Sadain explained.

Sadain noted that the Comelec is pushing for the modernization of the electoral system to minimize if not totally eradicate cases of cheating and other forms of electoral fraud.

"Computerization would not provide all solutions to the problem involving elections but it can minimize human intervention and thus minimize possibility of fraud," Sadain pointed out.

Thus, Sadain said the poll body is urging Congress to approve the Comelec’s proposed budget for 2006.

According to Sadain, they would use the P1.5 billion for the purchase of the matching equipment and just hope that they would eventually be allowed to use the ACMs.

"The ACMs are still functional so instead of buying machines with similar functions, we would rather allocate the fund for the purchase of new matching equipment," he said. — Mayen Jaymalin