NAGA CITY, Oct. 20 (PNA) -- With a little more than one week before the last day biometrics registration of voters, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Camarines Sur provincial office on Tuesday said 10 percent of the 978,640 registered voters as of July 15 has yet to submit for biometrics; if not, there names will be deleted from the official voters’ list, according to its spokesperson in the province.
Comelec Camarines Sur spokesperson Alexander Marpuri appealed to the 93,225 registered voters in the 35 towns and two cities of the province to avail of the remaining days to register and let their biometrics taken to ensure that they could vote and not to be stricken out from the list of registered voters in the 2016 elections.
Marpuri said some 2,135 voters with incomplete biometrics are included among the voters without biometrics who failed to submit any of the requirements of submitting their fingerprints, specimen signature and photos captured by the Comelec machines.
He said blurred photos of voters are also considered incomplete biometrics.
Marpuri said that from Tuesday until Oct. 31, the Comelec offices are open until 8 p.m. from Monday to Sunday to allow as many registered voters to submit themselves for biometrics because there will be no time for extension.
He said the Comelec found the filing of the Certificates of Candidacies (COCs) to be peaceful even though some “minute” problems were encountered like missing documentary science stamps and failing to renounce foreign citizenship of some of those who filed their COCs.
He also announced that the new voting machines to be used had been an upgrade of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) which are now being repaired for use in the next election after the 2016 elections.
Marpuri said the major difference of the PCOS machines and the new voting machines are that the new ones are installed with screen that allows voters to see who they have voted upon when the ballots are feed into the new voting machines.
He said both PCOS and the new voting machines use the same optical-mark-reader technology.
Lawyer Maico Julia, Comelec officer of Naga City, also reiterated that there is no pre-mature campaigning for as long as the candidates are not yet officially declared.
Julia said the official declaration of the candidates falls on Feb. 9, 2016 for national positions and March 25 for local positions.
He said infomercials of those who have filed their COCs are not considered premature campaigning even as those infomercials promote a certain candidate but said the expenses on them will be added in the campaign expenses with standard of PHP1.50 per voter.
Julia reminded that the substitution of candidate is allowed by party on or before Dec. 10 and beyond that date substitution will only be allowed to those with the same surnames.(PNA) FFC/FGS/JME/CBD