Philippines: Comelec warned vs new tech for 2013 polls | ABS-CBN News

Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday cautioned the Commission in Elections (Comelec) against pushing through with a plan to use new technology for the 2013 elections, with an alleged cheating operator leading the poll body.

Cayetano said having election lawyer Sixto Brillantes as Comelec chairman raises doubts about the intentions behind changing the technology used during the first nationwide automated elections in 2010.

Philippines: Tiñga: Taguig recount snags Brillantes appointment | Metro

The delay in the confirmation of Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes is actually due to an electoral protest in Taguig City and not a sincere desire to have clean elections, retired Supreme Court Justice Dante O. Tiñga said yesterday.

The retired magistrate said Senate Minority Leader Alan Cayetano, a member of the Commission on Appointments, delayed the approval of Brillantes’ appointment because he wanted to indefinitely delay the recount of Taguig’s mayoral election which Cayetano’s wife Lani won by a slim margin.

“The senator is really not interested in seeing an appointee who has a “roadmap towards clean and honest elections,” as he calls it, but someone whom he personally likes, to head the Comelec,” said Tinga, who was also a Taguig congressman.

Philippines: Biometrics election registration gets approval in The Philippines| The Manila Bulletin

The House of Representatives yesterday gave the nod for the measure requiring biometrics registration for “honest, clean and credible” elections. House Bill 3469, principally authored by Tarlac Rep. Susan Yap, which was passed on third and final reading seeks to ensure the integrity of any electoral exercises, be it election, plebiscite or referenda.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will serve as the implementing arm of the measure. It is tasked to come up with a single, official, centralized, interactive computerized voter registration list “in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner.”

Philippines: Comelec may get new IT provider, other than Smartmatic, in next polls | Inquirer News

The postponement of next month’s Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao polls may have virtually quashed the dreams of the Smartmatic Philippines to be the exclusive automated election service provider in the Philippines.

“No more. They’ll have to compete [with other providers] in 2013,”

Commission on Elections chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. told reporters when asked if the poll body would still be contracting Smartmatic for future elections in the country.

Smartmatic and its partner, Total Information Management Inc., won the P7-billion contract for the May 2010 national and local elections. The consortium produced some 80,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan machines for the exercise.

Philippines: House okays bill seeking to cleanse Philippine voters’ list | Zamboanga Today Online

Determined to eliminate flying voters, the House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a measure cleansing the national voters’ list from multiple registrants to curb cheating and ensure the results of elections are reflective of the genuine will of the people.

Tarlac Rep. Susan Yap, one of the authors of House Bill No. 3469, said those who shall be submitted for validation are voters registered as of May 10, 2010 national elections and those who will register under Republic Act No. 8189 or “The Voter’s Registration Act of 1996” without biometrics data.

Yap said the city and municipal Election Officer, through the use of Data Capturing Machines (DCMs), shall conduct the validation process by taking the biometrics of voters.

Philippines: COMELEC starts partial distribution of voter’s ID in Maasin City The Philippines | PIA daily news

The office of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) based in Maasin City has started distributing the first batch of voter’s ID to its recipients in the city of Maasin.

Out of 48,781 registered voters, as of the latest barangay elections, only 10,603 voter’s ID intended for Maasin City have arrived yet, Laurence Irman Gelsano, the Acting Election Officer III reported to PIA in an interview today.

Philippines: Bill seeks to get biometric data of all Filipino voters | FutureGov

The Philippine government is seeking to institutionalize the use of biometrics in voter registration to clean the voter record in preparation for the midterm elections in 2013. House Bill 3469 which requires all voters to have their biometrics data — photographs, fingerprints and signature — taken by an election officer and prohibits those without biometric data from voting has now hurdled Third Reading at the House of Representatives.

According to the author of the bill, 2nd district Tarlac Representative Susan Yap, the move will “cure the perennial problem of multiple registrants and flying voters” since every registrant is assigned a unique key of identification.

Philippines: Watchdog says vote-buying rampant in Ilocos Sur Philippines special polls | Inquirer News

The special election Saturday for the Ilocos Sur congressional seat vacated by Ronald Singson was peaceful despite reports of rampant vote-buying, the head of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting said.

Henrietta de Villa, PPCRV chair, said that the election watchdog’s local volunteers reported many incidents of vote-buying and barangay officials entering poll precincts while voters were casting their votes in Ilocos Sur’s first congressional district.