‘Extension of voters listup to delay poll preparations further’

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday said it will file a motion for clarification with the Supreme Court, explaining that extending voter’s registration until January 9 will delay poll automation preparations further. In an interview with GMA News, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said that the SC’s decision that granted the petition of the Kabataan Party-list for registration extension has set the poll body’s poll preparations back by three to four weeks. Jimenez said they will have to go through the approval of voters and distribution of voter’s lists to the different precincts again because the list is bound to change depending on how many voters will be added. With this, he said the printing of ballots, which was originally set on January 7 or 8, has been moved to January 28. He added that the move will entail additional costs in terms of work pay and other expenses. “We are preparing a motion for clarification. As soon as we get clarification for the SC on this, we may be finally settled at the commission," said Comelec Law Department head Ferdinand Rafanan in a separate interview. He said "Comelec staff are preparing the tentative schedule for registration as recommended by the SC," adding that continuation of the voter listup has been set on December 21 to 23 and on 28 to 29. Although the last day of the extended registration will be on January 9, Jimenez clarified that the dates January 2 until 9 will be spent for “administrative matters." Rafanan said they will post the list of the new applicants on January 4, giving the registrants until January 6 to file an opposition to any of the new registrants. By January 9, the Election Registration Board will begin their hearings to weed out ineligible voters. The Comelec said that as of the December 10, the number of registered voters has reached 49,271,492. In the 2007 elections, there were 45,029,443 registered voters. Earlier, Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said the SC decision has put the poll body in a very difficult position. But Rafanan said, “We will have to make do with what is there in accordance with the decision and we can see that the Comelec will be operating under very difficult circumstances but I believe we can do it." Last November, the poll body said that poll preparations were already behind by a month from the original timeline. Last Monday, Melo said that costlier shipping and traffic has caused a delay in the delivery of some 12,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines which were supposed to arrive by the end of December. - LBG, GMANews.TV