An anti-electoral fraud group raised alarms on the disenfranchisement of overseas voters stemming from the poll body’s reported mishandling of the online voting system.
Kontra Daya said it received numerous reports about problems with the ongoing online voting system mostly brought about by inadequate information to overseas Filipinos by both the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and other concerned government agencies.
The Comelec ordered the shift from manual and automated voting in Philippine embassies and consulates to purely online voting system for the 2025 midterm elections.
“Posting about it on the consulate/embassy website and their Facebook pages is not enough. They did not even try to use other means to communicate this major change to our kababayans overseas,” Kontra Daya said, quoting a migrant worker from Australia.
This situation has resulted in many overseas Filipinos being caught off-guard with the new system, the group added in a statement.
“Many overseas Filipinos thought that they still had to wait for their ballots to vote. We are not even sure if most are aware of the May 7 deadline for pre-registration,” said a migrant from Canada, Kontra Daya reported.
Earlier, OFWs in Hong Kong complained of difficulties in online registration they blamed on Comelec’s late opening of its pre-enrolment link as well as delayed information drive.
“There are no advisories on what to do if such problems are encountered. We need an accessible and reliable system. This flawed system represents a significant and widespread disenfranchisement,” Bayan Muna-Hong Kong spokesperson Lai Besana said.
READ: Bayan Muna-HK asks Comelec, ‘Where’s the pre-voting enrolment link?’
Kontra Daya said that overseas voters had been victimized by “technical issues” during the actual online voting since it opened last March 20.
Issues include complicated enrolment procedures, broken hyperlinks, freezing or restarting of the voting page and problems with the uploading their IDs, it said.
Kontra Daya said the voters are complaining that they do not have a way to verify their votes with the online system.
“The Comelec should immediately address these issues to prevent more votes from being disenfranchised. Should these issues remain unresolved, these will only lead to bigger problems and increase the risk of election fraud,” Kontra Daya convenor Danilo Arao said.
He stressed that Comelec should have offered options for the overseas Filipinos to encourage the latter to vote, especially if the registration rate is low.
“However, its inadequate preparation and slow action threatens to further disenfranchise them. Internet voting was intended to improve the roughly 1.2 million overseas Filipinos’ participation in the elections but Comelec has turned it into a tool that could prevent them from exercising their right to vote,” Arao said.
The online voting system ends on March 12 at 7PM Philippine time. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
