The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) on Oct. 11 proposed a bill using real-time fingerprint scanning to enhance voter identity verification in an automated election.
The CenPEG legislative proposal came up in the light of reports that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to computerize the registration of 14 million out of the country’s estimated 50 million voters. As earlier announced by the poll body, computerized registration has covered only 36 million voters.
Aside from completing the computerization of voter registration, some 708,150 pairs of entries in the database need to be cleansed, Comelec said.
The proposed bill was announced by CenPEG’s IT consultant, Dr. Pablo Manalastas, during the first hearing of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation (CERPP) chaired by recently-installed Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.
Explaining the proposed bill, Manalastas said real-time fingerprint scanning will prevent unauthorized persons from casting a vote for the legitimate registered voter. As the voter casts his vote by feeding the ballot into the voting machine he will first present his finger (thumb) for scanning a fingerprint reader device. If the voter is verified by the device as the real registered voter his ballot will be accepted by the voting machine, the computer science professor said.
In past elections, voter’s registration did not prevent double- or -multiple entries with “flying voters” many of them under-age voting at will several times in exchange for money coming from cheating candidates. The first automated and synchronized elections in May 2010 did not prevent widespread vote buying from taking place. In countless precincts, the names of deceased persons were used to elect certain candidates.
The governor of Lanao del Sur province, Mamintal Alonto-Adiong, Jr., revealed during the committee hearing several cases of double- and multiple-entries in voters registration in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Citing an example, Adiong said eight barangays adjoining the Mindanao State University in Marawi City showed double registrants with their number even bigger than the total demographic population. On election day in May 2010, the “registered voters” actually voted elsewhere – in their hometowns. “Only one” filled up the ballots of the eight barangays, he said.
Asked by Senator Pimentel whether the poll body can meet its target of full computerized registration of all voters in country, Comelec officials present at the hearing the work can be finished before the next elections in 2013.
Maricor Akol of the Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch), meanwhile, also proposed the use of the iris voter identification system now used in India. She said the iris identification system appears to have higher accuracy and is used in India particularly for farmers whose fingerprints could no longer be scanned after years of working in the fields.
Also present during the CERPP meeting were Toti Casino of the Philippine Computer Society (PCS); Lito Averia, also of AES Watch; Eric Alvia, secretary general of Namfrel, who came with its founding president, Jose Concepcion; Bobby Tuazon, also of CenPEG; as well as Lente and PPCRV.
Pimentel said the next committee hearings will take up other electoral reform bills. He was joined by Sens. Serge Osmena and Vicente Sotto, Jr. Posted by CenPEG