Press Release
November 12, 2012

Bill requiring biometrics registration of voters ok'd

The Senate today approved on third and final reading a bill requiring biometrics registration of all qualified voters.

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, chairman of the Committee on Electoral Reforms and People's Participation, said the implementation of Senate Bill No. 1030 "will allow a thorough cleansing of the national voters' registry that will reduce, if not eliminate, cheating and sure that the result of elections are reflective of the genuine will of the people."

The proposed legislation, authored by Sen. Lito Lapid, requires all registered voters whose biometrics have not been captured, to appear before the election officer in their places of registration so that their photographs, fingerprints, signatures and other identifiable features may be captured thru biometrics.

"We can ensure that the automated fingerprint identification system, the AFIS, may be utilized to read the national voters registration of double or multiple registrants," Pimentel said during his sponsorship speech.

Under the bill, photographs, fingerprints, signature, and other identifiable features, will be stored by the data capturing machine of the automated election system that has been adopted by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Voters who fail to submit for validation for the purposes of the 2013 national and local elections despite due notice shall be deactivated from the registration record of voters by the Election Registration Board (ERB ) concerned, according to Pimentel.

However, he said, those deactivated may apply before the ERB concerned for reactivation after they shall have undergone the validation process under Republic Act No. 8189.

"Let me reiterate that it is incumbent upon all of us to design an electoral system that will address the decades-old problem of electoral fraud and election cheating," Pimentel said.

" It is our duty to ensure that the Comelec is duty enabled by the laws that we pass to administer clean, honest, fair and credible elections. Otherwise, elections will continue to be manipulated by the unscrupulous, the crooked and the corrupt to the prejudice of our national well-being," he added. (PILAR MACROHON, PRIB)

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