Loophole allows ‘flying voters’ to sneak into polling precincts

“Flying voters" and double registrants could still sneak into polling precincts on Monday even as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) had purged the computerized voters list (CVL) of bogus voters. Poll officials pointed to Comelec Resolution 7893 that was promulgated May 8 as the culprit. They said the ruling allowed multiple registrants to still participate in Monday’s local and congressional balloting. “In all cases where registrants are found to be registered in two or more districts/cities/municipalities, the latest registration shall prevail which is deemed to be more in consonance with the intent of the concerned registered voters. Accordingly, they shall be allowed to vote only in the district/city/municipality of their latest registration," one of the provisions of the resolution said. Another provision also states that “this is distinguished from the policy on double registrants found within the same district/city/municipality where their original registration shall prevail over the subsequent registrations." In an interview with Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra, he admitted that the possibility that double and multiple registrants would attempt to vote is high. However, Borra said he is counting on the Information Technology Department (ITD) that has been ordered by Comelec Resolution 7893 to zero in on flying voters before they could cast their vote. He said ITD will print the list of the double and multiple registrants per precinct, per municipality, per district and per city and it will be given to the members of the board of election inspectors (BEIs) to guide them in spotting flying voters. Borra claimed that the number of double registrants is minimal. He said most of them are voters whose transfer had not been acted upon. “It’s manageable and controllable. This is not a big number," Borra said. Commissioner Rene Sarmiento also believes this number is not “significant" to mock the electoral process. He said the Comelec has weeded out at least 1.1 million flying and double and multiple registrants from the CVL. He said cleansing of voters’ list is still ongoing. But an official who spoke on condition of anonymity said flying voters still a problem that the Comelec must resolve. “Admittedly we cannot perfect the cleansing of the voters records and that was the dysfunction of the former precinct mapping [implemented by the Comelec]," the official said. According to the source, the P6.5-billion precinct-mapping project, which was the pet project of former Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco in fact bungled the Comelec’s voters list when it was implemented in 2002. - GMANews.TV