LAST week the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting (COAV) announced it intended to have a million overseas absentee voters by 2013. In 2004 there were 359,296 voters on the OAV list. This number climbed steadily until it hit 589,830 in 2010.
Unfortunately, the overseas absentee-voting law carries a provision that requires the delisting of voters who failed to vote in two consecutive elections. This is a much harsher consequence than what people who vote in the Philippines would be subjected to under the same conditions. Here at home, the worst that can happen is that we have our registrations deactivated. Unlike overseas absentee voters, we don’t get kicked out of the list.
To cushion the blow, and keeping in mind that the OAV law was passed precisely to enfranchise Filipinos overseas, Comelec is trying to find a way to avoid having to remove these voters from the list, despite their failure to vote in 2007 and 2010. Still, the number of registered overseas absentee voters might well be pruned down to less than half a million. All of which means that Comelec—and the COAV in particular—has its work cut out for it.
To help meet its million-voter target, Comelec is pressing for key amendments to Republic Act 9189—the OAV law—including the removal of the requirement for an affidavit of intent to return, and the adoption of Internet registration.
The affidavit of intent to return is a specific requirement for immigrants and permanent residents abroad, and it has never been popular. Reports from the various Philippine embassies and consulates across the world indicate that many potential registrants are turned off by the requirement, mainly from the fear that executing such an affidavit would jeopardize their immigration status.
For most other Filipinos overseas, however, the affidavit of intent to return is nowhere near as problematic as geography. In many cases, Filipinos live far from the Philippine embassy or consulate where they are supposed to register as voters. In other places, our countrymen even have to go to an altogether different country just to see an embassy or consulate. Since the law requires the individual to personally appear in order to register, this becomes a very inconvenient—and sometimes expensive—proposition.
We must also take into consideration the reason our countrymen are abroad in the first place. Many of the Filipinos we want to register as voters are abroad primarily to earn a living. This means that a lot of them take on work even on their days-off in order to supplement their salaries, leaving them with very little opportunity—not to mention inclination—to take a time-consuming trip to the embassy or consulate, just to register. And that’s just land-based workers. One can imagine how much more challenging it would be for a seafarer.
In order to minimize the impact of these concerns on overseas absentee-voter registration numbers, Comelec is actively pursuing the idea of online voter registration. Commissioner Armando Velasco, COAV chairman, reports that the House of Representatives is open to the idea, provided the registration system is safeguarded against hacking.
If Comelec can install such safeguards—and considering the wealth of Filipino IT talent, there is absolutely no reason to believe it can’t—then we will see a jump in the number of registrants. The convenience of the process alone would be a huge attraction for Filipinos overseas.
Internet voting is another innovation Comelec is very interested in. Much like Internet registration, Internet voting promises to eliminate many of the factors that have so far led to low levels of participation in the overseas absentee-voting system. After all, if you can register and vote from anywhere, what excuse do you really have for not doing anything?
The best thing about Internet voting is that we are not without experience. From July 20 to August 8, 2007, hot on the heels of the midterm elections, the COAV pilot-tested an Internet voting system in Singapore. Although it was a nonbinding election, it clearly proved the feasibility, security, and reliability of Internet voting. At the time, however, there was considerable resistance to the idea. Fortunately, Comelec successfully conducted back-to-back automated elections: in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2008 and nationwide in 2010.
It is perhaps not too far off the mark to say that secure and reliable electronic transmission of data—so central to the concept of Internet voting—can no longer be considered far-fetched. With the right sort of preparations and security features, all implemented in a most transparent manner, Internet voting may well prove to be an idea whose time has come.
James Jimenez blogs at http://james-jimenez.com and tweets as @jab-jimenez on Twitter.
