The Commission on Elections appealed to the congress on Wednesday to allow a re-registration of voters to establish a more accurate list for the 2028 elections
COMELEC chairman George Erwin Garcia urged the political parties' representatives to call out the legislators to allow re-registration of voters and to use new technology to improve voter identification during the "Updates on Political Party Institutionalization and the 2025 National and Local Elections" conference held at The Bayleaf Intramuros in Manila.
"In 2026, let's annul the list of voters. Let's convince Congress, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Let's annul the entire list of voters in the entire country," the chairman said.
Garcia proposed a month of general registration of voters to determine an accurate number of Filipinos who can vote in the upcoming elections.
"This is to find out if there are really 68 million voters in the country. So at least, we'll be back to zero in 2028," Garcia said.
Garcia stated that the COMELEC is currently using an Automated Fingerprint Identification System or AFIS, a system that the poll body uses to cross-match the biometrics data registrations of voters as part of efforts to eliminate double and multiple registrants.
The chairman added that AFIS detected more than 491,000 double and multiple registrations prior to the 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections.
The COMELEC stressed that the agency aims to improve the voter identification system by using new technologies to ensure transparency and organization.
"A lot has changed even if you say that no person has the same fingerprint of another, a lot has changed in that person's situation," Garcia said.
"So the question is how do we determine the accuracy of the system, and that's what we want to know before we conduct a special general registration, allow the government to procure AFIS," he added.
Garcia believes that the changes would be an avenue to address the problem of double and multiple registrations, as well as other possible election issues.
Garcia was among the speakers at the event, along with Professor Julio C. Teehankee and Director Efraim Bag-id, which was initiated by Political Participation for Greater Electoral Integrity (PARTICIPATE), a non-partisan, pro-democracy coalition "dedicated to engage and empower the political participation of Filipinos, endeavors to bring together representatives from national and regional political parties, top party-list organizations, Comelec officials, and the media."
Efforts to strengthen and institutionalize political parties are part of the forum's discussion.
