MANILA - With the October 31 deadline for voter registration fast approaching, people are flocking to registration in droves.

Lining up, however, is no guarantee that you would be accommodated by election officers in registration centers. ABS-CBN’s Boto Mo iPatrol Mo desk is currently receiving numerous complaints over problems encountered by people wanting to register.

System foul-ups
In Laguna for example, café owner Jabez Flores, who is in his mid-twenties, went in line before 11:30 am to register at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office in Los Baños, Laguna last October 20 only to be asked to go home and return the next day. Apparently, the data capturing machines (DCM) assigned to the registration center crashed.

The DCMs are used by the Comelec personnel to record the biometrics of all registrants. Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento earlier explained that the Commission need the biometrics data to eliminate multiple registrants. They will also be used for voter verification on election day.

Flores’s friend, Sherwin Felicidario, reported about the Los Baños incident through an email to ireport@abs-cbn.com. In the same email, he sent in the contact number of the Comelec office in Los Baños.

When abs-cbnNEWS.com/ Newsbreak called the number to get the side of Comelec, election assistant Elino Batalon slammed the Boto Mo iPatrol Mo (BMPM) television coverage for making them look bad. “It was only that day that we had a problem, and it seemed like that is how we work. It was totally unfair,” he said.

He explained that their computers had a problem that week and had to be brought to a computer shop as early as 9am—hoping to get the computers back before the end of that day. They waited two hours but when the technicians said it was “hopeless,” they asked the people to go home.

“We asked them to go home at that time because there was no point in making them line up. We needed the computers to verify and input data of the registrants,” he said.

They announced to those who lined up that registration will be open until 7 pm the next day to process applications and for the registrants to undergo biometrics capturing, Batalon said.

Batalon said that as of now, the office’s computers are not yet fixed but the Comelec national office was able to give them spare computers where they were able to transfer all the files.

Cut-off at 200?
Apart from system foul-ups, however, BMPM has also been getting e-mails from Cavite, Taguig City and other parts of Metro Manila complaining that their registration centers refuse to accept registrants before closing time. The usual reason cited: they have reached their cut-off.

For instance, after her classes on October 19, first time voter Trish Torres of Lipa City went to the registration center in, Banay Banay, Lipa City. She arrived at 12:30 pm. When she saw that the Comelec staff were having lunch, she said she waited until 1:15 pm.

When she inquired as to where she can get registration forms, however, she was told by the staff that they will not be accepting registrants anymore because they have reached their cut-off of 200.

“They told me to go to Robinsons Lipa tomorrow. It was disappointing. Come on! Our place can't be just represented by 200 people! No wonder maraming naiinis sa kanila. Please, sana naman ayusin nila trabaho nila.”

Another concerned citizen from Bacoor City, Cavite wrote to BMPM that as of 3 pm, the Comelec branch at Poblacion, Bacoor refused to accept applicants last October 23. The Comelec office there also opened registration late, at 8:30 am.

‘Last minute’ registrants
Batalon told abs-cbnNEWS.com/ Newsbreak that there is really no “cut-off” time dictated by the Comelec. He said that it depends on how many people line up in each registration center.

A DCM could only accommodate 250 registrants and people who line up during the last weeks exceed that number, so they are not able to accommodate everyone, Batalon said.

He added that before, not much people were registering so they were able to accommodate those in line.

“The problem is that people register at the last minute. Very ‘last minute’ that last night, no one was in line at 7:30 pm but people came to register 5 minutes before the closing time,” he shouted over the phone.

“It is unfair that when they line up late, they do not get scolded. But, when we do not accommodate them even if they line up at an unreasonable hour everyone will lash out at us,” he said.

Malfunctioning DCMs
Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak that whenever the DCMs malfunction, it usually take 1-2 days to have the damaged parts repaired or replaced.

If the Comelec main office has a spare part or computer, then they will deliver the needed hardware or software to the provincial offices of Comelec—as in the case in in Los Baños.

If the centers are far away or parts are not available at the main office, it would take 3-4 days to deliver the needed parts, Sarmiento said.

Batalon said that because they have a new computer, operations were back to normal but a little slower because the computer that was given to them was not as advanced as the ones that crashed. When they had the problem, they contacted the Comelec right away and asked a nearby computer technician as to what they could do.

The Comelec has extended registration hours but maintained that, despite the long lines and the system foul-ups, the voter registration will not be extended beyond October 31. – abs-cbnNEWS.com/ Newsbreak