MAASIN CITY (PIA) — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it has built-in measures to make sure situations of double registration of voters is prevented.

The move is significant, especially now that the poll body has expanded the reach of its service by designating its offices in capital towns and cities as sites that can accept the registration needs of people coming from other places and regular continuing registration. 

The innovation is called the Register Anywhere Program (RAP). It allows a transient resident to register at the Comelec Maasin City office instead of returning to the place where an applicant lives to register as a new voter. 

At the recent Kapihan sa PIA, Don Joshua Margate, city elections officer, was asked about a possible situation when an applicant for registration could be registered twice, either through the regular, continuing listing or RAP. 

“There is the automatic fingerprint identification system (AFIS). This can be traced if one had registered in Maasin but was still included in the active list of voters in the town of Malitbog, for example. That’s the beauty of our biometrics, which are connected with AFIS,” Margate said.

He further explained that when a registrant is found to share the same name and date of birth with an individual in another location, and this is further confirmed through fingerprint biometrics during the registration process, the name on the latest list will be removed. The older list will remain unchanged.

But the danger here is if there is anyone who may be interested in seeing someone’s name on the Comelec bulletin board, where the names of newly registered voters—either as a new voter, transferee or by a change of name—are posted and consequently will file a case.

Margate declared that the election offense of double registration carries a penalty of at least six years imprisonment. (MMP, PIA Southern Leyte)