200,000 absentee voters face delisting

MANILA, Philippines - More than 200,000 overseas absentee voters (OAV) may be delisted after they failed to file a “manifestation of intent” to vote.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes said only 29 of those they managed to contact complied with the filing.

“We sent notices to more than 200,000 overseas absentee voters who did not vote in two succeeding elections, to file the manifestation or be delisted from the voter’s list,” he said.

Brillantes said the Comelec would have reactivated the voters’ registration if they had filed the manifestation.

“Just imagine, we will prepare more than 978,000 ballots, but not all of them will vote,” he said.

Under Comelec Resolution 9567 dated Dec. 4, 2012, a total of 238,557 OAV who had failed to vote in 2007 and 2010 should now be removed or deleted from the NROAV (National Registry of OAV).

The OAVs were given the chance to file the Manifestation of Intent to vote until Dec. 21 last year.

Plastic security locks

The Comelec will use plastic locks in place of metal ones to secure more than 81,000 ballot boxes.

In an interview, Brillantes said metal padlocks are more costly.

“Under our previous set-up, we were supposed to order five padlocks (per ballot box),” he said.

The Comelec is hoping to save at least half of the P33-million budget earmarked for padlocks.

The agency was initially given P8.3 billion and then another P4.1 billion for the polls.

Brillantes said the plastic locks will have serial numbers so the Comelec would know if they have been tampered with.

“In my experience as a practicing election lawyer, the Comelec metal padlocks would open by merely flipping them,” he said.

“And yet they are heavy and expensive.  If you open the padlocks and then you close them, you hardly notice that they were opened. But with plastic seals, you would know that they were opened.”

Brillantes said plastic seals will not compromise the integrity of ballots because they already have picture image.

“Under the automated election system, we don’t really protect the ballots because they already have picture image,” he said. “For me the padlocks are only decorations of the ballot boxes.”

The Comelec will hold a bidding for the purchase of the plastic seals.

Brillantes said that they would also do away with thumb marking of voters to prevent a long queue in polling precincts on Election Day.

“We solve some queuing problems since we can save time during thumb marking,” he said.

The Comelec estimates that the voting time per voter would be reduced by 20 minutes.

Thumb marking is also unnecessary because of the digital signatures of voters in the certified voter’s list and in the official ballots, Brillantes said.

The Board of Election Inspectors will also no longer place indelible ink on the fingers inside polling precincts so as not to interrupt the flow of voters.

“After casting your vote, it won’t be necessary anymore to go back to the BEI desk to have your fingers marked with indelible ink,” Brillantes said. “It will be done near the exit.”