POLITICAL parties concerned over the presence of “flying voters” in their respective turfs may submit their position paper before the Commission on Elections (Comelec), an official said.

Northern Mindanao Regional Director Renato Magbutay’s call came over two weeks after the foiled attempts by several registrants in Cagayan de Oro to make it into the official voters’ list twice using false identities and fake Comelec registration forms.

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Complaints, positions or any doubt to the integrity of the voters’ list may be raised before the Election Registration Board (ERB), Dir. Magbutay said.

The ERB, which is responsible for the approval of all applications for voter’s registration, will receive evidence for or against any application and resolve issues within this week, Magbutay said.

If the board disapproves an application, the applicant shall be furnished with a certificate of disapproval stating the ground. 

“The ERB will tackle the issue as soon as aggrieved parties would submit its position paper concerning reports of the so-called flying voters,” Magbutay told RMN-dxCC in an interview.

“This week, the ERB is set to hold a marathon hearing to affirm all new registered voters and to verify the validity of their applications.”

Last week, Cagayan de Oro Vice Mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano slammed what he said was an obvious machination to have flying voters sneaked into the voters’ list during the final week of the registration, which ended last October 31.

The City Comelec said unspecified number of "double registrants" tried to use unauthorized Comelec forms to register twice. The fraud was discovered because the forms had been found to be duplicated from earlier registrants.

Following the incident, the City Comelec issued a statement assuring the integrity of the official voters’ list, saying fraudulent schemes such as the use of fake Comelec forms can easily be detected through the computer.

Magbutay agreed, saying safeguards have been put in place to ward off potential cheaters in the next year’s automated elections.

He also downplayed apprehensions over the election machines’ supposed vulnerability to hackers.
“The window of chances nga ma-hack ang machine during election is imposible kay dunay ibutang nga security code sa machine ug dili kini basta-basta ma-hack,” the Comelec said.

Former Cagayan de Oro Vice Mayor Antonio Soriano had earlier said an automated election was not enough guarantee to hold clean and fraud-free elections.

He said the possibility of fraud cannot be ignored even with poll automation. 

For his part, Emano warned the “flying voters” who purportedly succeeded in registering at Comelec not to vote at all, lest they’d be jailed for cheating.

He also accused unnamed “politicians” of having maneuvered the fraudulent registration of certain individuals several barangays.

“Some of these people were caught and they have admitted that they were paid to register as flying voters. We believe there are many of them,” the vice mayor was quoted as saying in a City Council newsletter last week.

“You will really regret once you are caught so I advise you not to vote anymore,” he said in the dialect. (With reports from DVAIII)