Wednesday, September 23, 2015


TAGBILARAN CITY, Sept 23 (PIA)--The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) municipal election offices await for the remaining 38,704 voters in Bohol who have yet to validate their records to be able to exercise their rights to vote come May 2016. 

This as the COMELEC counts less than 30 days before they close the registration by October 31, 2015, at 5:00 PM. 

Moreover, the poll body added that registration would be suspended on October 12-16 to allow the COMELEC to accept the certificates of candidacies; the days being allotted as the officials dates for filing of certificates. 

With that, Boholanos would only have less than 30 days to have their registrations validated, entries changed or certificates of transfer filled so they could still get into the final list, according to the COMELEC. 
Bohol Comelec Supervisor Atty. Eliseo Labaria then urges Boholanos, especially from the island barangays to go visit their municipal election offices for registration validation, through the taking of one's biometrics. 

Over 10,000 voters have not registered from the towns of Ubay, Inabanga, Tubigon and Talibon, Comelec records bare, which leads them to believe the island registered voters may have yet to come to the mainland to be validated via the biometrics. 

The validation by biometrics essentially cleans the old list in as much as this exacts from the voter his picture, fingerprint and signature which it stores in a databank that can be used to identify similar features in a person. 

The biometrics, according to Atty Labaria has a feature called automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) which puts up red flags as soon as a person logs into the election voters list using one's already data-banked fingerprint. 

The same automated feature allows the computer networks to compare one's facial features with the thousands across the country and puts up notifications for double registrations. 

He also warned voters who might have falsely believed that having a COMELEC issued identification card is enough. 

"The law provides that biometrics would be the basis for the final list of voters, and not the Comelec voter's identification cards," Labaria said. 

For new registrants, or those who would be 18 by May 9, 2016, all they need to bring to the Comelec offices are Identification cards with dates of birth, or simply birth certificates, which could be PSA authenticated or the ones that can be obtained from the local civil registrars, he said. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)

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