The Philippines Supreme Court has ordered a temporary halt to the country’s Commission on Elections’ efforts to deactivate the voting eligibility of citizens who failed to register their biometric data on time.
It’s the latest cliffhanger development in Comelec’s long saga of biometric voter registration. Next year’s national election is to be the first requiring biometric voter authentication, and to that end Comelec has pursued a months-long effort to get eligible voters to register their biometric data, having set a deadline of October 31st. Of course, despite vehement efforts to get the word out early about the need to register, Comelec’s registration centers saw huge crowds in the days leading up to the deadline, and were ultimately overwhelmed. Now, there are 2.5 million voters whose eligibility to vote must be deactivated, since they failed to register on time.
The Supreme Court’s order has put a halt to that, at least temporarily. Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te has explained that the temporary restraining order is “effective immediately and until further orders,” and it isn’t yet clear what those further orders could entail.
It’s a victory for youth groups campaigning under the leadership of the Kabataan Party-list, who had urged the Supreme Court to put a stop to the disenfranchisement process as a matter of protecting the country’s democratic process. And it leaves Comelec in the uncertain position of not knowing how to proceed in its mandate to establish the conditions necessary for next year’s biometric election.
Source: Rappler
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December 1, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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