Comelec 7 urges voters to check their status online or in offices

AS THE Commission on Elections’ (Comelec’s) online precinct finder is still unavailable after the hacking and data breach incident on the Comelec’s website in 2016, the Comelec 7 urged voters in the region to visit the offices or the official Comelec Facebook page of the municipalities and cities where they are registered to check if they are still active voters.

Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Lionel Marco Castillano said the Comelec is coordinating with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) for data security.

“As of now, they can message the different Comelec Facebook pages of cities and municipalities where they are registered for confirmation if they are active voters or visit our Comelec offices,” Castillano told SunStar Cebu in a text message on Tuesday, May 25, 2021.

In 2016, the Comelec’s database of voters’ records was hacked by groups known as Anonymous Philippines and LulzSec Pilipinas, which leaked it to the public.

Castillano said failure to vote successively for two consecutive regular elections, death and conviction for a crime (the penalty of which is one year) are grounds for deactivation as a voter.

Though he could not give the actual data yet on the number of deactivated voters because of death and crime conviction, he had said Comelec has deactivated the registration of 322,777 voters who failed to vote in the past two consecutive elections.

Meanwhile, he said, a total of 334,504 Cebuano voters have registered from August 2019 to May 15, 2021 for the May 9, 2022 national elections.

With this, Cebu is expected to have about 2.7 million total expected voters for the national elections in 2022.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Comelec registration only resumed on Sept. 20, 2020 (except in areas placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and modified ECQ after it was halted in March 2020.

The Comelec has also implemented health measures for the conduct of the registration.

Registrants are now asked to fill out the Covid-19 Self Declaration Form.

They are also encouraged to bring duly accomplished application forms that can be downloaded from the Comelec’s official website (www.comelec.gov.ph) or to schedule an online appointment through iRehistro.

However, the affixing of signature will be done upon personal appearance during the filing of registration and biometrics data capturing.

The last day of registration was on May 25. (WBS)