Comelec vows clean voters’ list for SK, barangay polls

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) assured the people yesterday that the poll body would purge multiple registrants to clean the voters’ list for the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections this October.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said there would be no multiple registrants in the voters list even though the agency is not using biometric data.

The 10-day registration period for the synchronized elections for the SK and barangay officials would start today.

Jimenez said the absence of biometric data would not deter the Comelec from cleansing the SK voters’ list.

He said the poll body would exert efforts to remove double and multiple registrants before releasing the certified and final list of voters.

“The list, although manually filled up, will still be encoded from the field. So once they reach the central office, we can still filter them (multiple registrants),” Jimenez explained.

The registration for the barangay elections will be similar to the regular process of registration, which includes the capture of biometrics data (digital picture, signature, and fingerprint) that will allow the Comelec to easily countercheck the presence of multiple registrants.

However, the Comelec said, there will be no biometrics capture in the SK registration since the list will only be used for one election and will not be automatically transferred to the regular voters’ list for national elections.