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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Solon: Allow new voters to register online

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A leader of the House of Representatives on Saturday pushed for the online registration of qualified voters by the Commission on Elections for next year’s presidential vote.

At the same time, Deputy Speaker and Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez urged Comelec to allow the online filing of the certificates of candidacy in October.

“Let us allow the youth who are already 18 years old or will be 18 years old on election day – May 9, 2022 – to register online and also those voters who were delisted for failure to vote in two successive elections to reactivate their status as voters also online. They cannot personally go to the offices of the Comelec because of the risk of getting infected by the highly contagious new coronavirus,” he said.

For the same reason, candidates should be permitted to file their candidacy certificates via the internet, he said.

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“In most if not all provinces, cities and towns, Comelec offices are too small to accommodate many candidates and their supporters. It would be impossible for them to observe physical distancing in these workplaces,” he said. 

Rodriguez said new voters should be allowed to register online because of the proximity of the Sept 30 deadline and supporting data such as biometrics could be obtained thru their personal appearance later, sometime in April 2022.

“We could ask them to come personally for their biometric data later when the health situation improves, when most of our people have been vaccinated or when the government has achieved herd immunity which it projects to be achieved in the 1st quarter of 2022, so there would be less risk of getting the virus,” he added.

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