By John Rey Saavedra/PNA
CEBU CITY — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the province of Cebu on Tuesday said “flying and dead voters” can now be easily detected through a new technology that it will introduce for the May 13 midterm election.
Lawyer Jerome Brillantes, Cebu provincial election supervisor, told the Philippine News Agency in an interview that part of the training modules given to the teachers who will sit in the electoral boards in the coming elections is the process of verifying information through the voters’ registration verification system (VRVS).
“Bag-o lang ni na-introduce (This has just been introduced) because Cebu is one of the pilot provinces chosen by the Comelec to test the new system in verifying voters’ information,” he said.
The information, Brillantes said, are stored in the database of the commission and can be accessed through the VRVS.
The system can be used to check the record of every voter in a jurisdiction, he said.
According to the poll official, the system will detect a voter who would show up in two or more precincts to cast their votes.
“We have huhungingong (rumors) about dead people who were able to cast their votes, we will prevent it from happening through the voters’ registration verification system,” he said.
Brillantes said more than 11,000 teachers in Cebu are now undergoing training in operating VRVS.
The system will give the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) a quick way to identify voters and will show to them if a voter has actually voted or not, he said.
“Makita nato kinsa ang botante, registered ba siya nga botante (We can check about the identity of the voter if he is indeed registered),” he added.
He said the voters’ biometrics found in the database are the data that can be found under the VRVS.
Brillantes, meanwhile, said the Comelec is yet to implement reshuffling of election officers in the province for the purpose of the May 13 elections.
