Namfrel: Online voting for Pinoys abroad not yet possible

MANILA, Philippines - The National Citizen’s Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) believes that Internet voting for overseas Filipinos is not yet possible because the country is not equipped technologically.

Namfrel senior operations associate Paolo Maligaya said there are other aspects of overseas absentee voting (OAV) that need to be modified to lure Filipinos abroad to register and vote.

“While it may be easy to say that all it takes to vote electronically is a computer and Internet connection, the country might not be equipped enough to handle Internet voting at this time,” Maligaya said.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is looking at adopting Internet voting for OAV to get more Filipinos abroad to vote in the 2013 mid-term polls.

The agency is targeting to register one million absentee voters, double the 589,830 overseas Filipinos registered for the May 2010 elections. Of this figure, only 153,323 actually voted.

Maligaya said the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003 “would need to be amended” to adjust the registration and voting requirements to the needs and conditions of Filipinos abroad.

“Filipinos abroad decry the difficulty of access to voting centers to register and vote, as well as the difficulty of taking time out from work to travel for these activities,” he said.

For one, overseas Filipinos are required to submit an affidavit assuring the government that they would return to the country within three years after registration to resume permanent residency.

“(It is) an impractical and absurd requirement that further discourages most overseas Filipinos from participating in our elections entirely: the penalty for not following this stipulation is disenfranchisement and even jail time,” he said.

Under the law, overseas Filipinos can vote personally through Philippine diplomatic posts abroad or through regular mail.

Maligaya said Estonia was the “first nation to hold legally binding general elections over the Internet in 2005.”