Now that it’s literally at your fingertips, you don’t have any excuse not to register to vote anymore!
As the election season draws nearer, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has launched its Mobile Registration Form application as a way to streamline the first step of the voter’s registration process amid ongoing quarantine restrictions.
The app, which debuted to the public last Tuesday, June 15, generates a unique QR code once a user successfully fills out the voter registration form. The applicant must then present the QR code to their local COMELEC satellite office together with their valid IDs and have their biometrics taken.
By cutting down on the time needed to procure the form and produce it on-site, the COMELEC hopes to hasten the entire voter registration process and accommodate more people per day.
“The launch of the mobile app is very timely in the face of mobility restrictions brought about by COVID-19, because you will only need a smartphone to accomplish the form,” said COMELEC Commissioner and project proponent Marlon Casquejo. “This will save time, effort and money that will otherwise be spent on going to a computer shop to download and print the form, or getting the form at the local Comelec office to fill it out manually.”
Two days after its launch, the link to the Mobile Registration Form, which was initially available through MediaFire, was temporarily taken down. The COMELEC issued a press release on Thursday, June 17, which said that the move was done “to prioritize its use in the pilot areas identified by COMELEC, consisting of 575 cities and municipalities in the country.”
The commission also released a full list of satellite sites selected for the pilot rollout, none of which were located in Metro Manila.
Nonetheless, the registration form remains usable offline. Users who have taken to the sites listed above may share it with other Android users via the file-sharing app SHAREit or through Bluetooth technology.
According to the latest data from COMELEC, there are already 60 million registered voters in the Philippines, meeting the commission’s target of four million first-time voters. This is also just 2 million short of the commission’s projected number of voters for the upcoming 2022 elections.
In addition to opening voter registration on Saturdays last February, the commission has also committed to increasing the number of satellite registration offices.
The deadline for voter registration is on September 30, 2021.
