Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia is hoping that the poll body would be allowed to nullify the entire voter list including the overseas Filipino voters after the 2025 polls. *Commission on Election (Comelec) Commissioner George Garcia gives a speech during the Comelec  Internet Voting Demonstration (IVD) held inside the Palacio Del Gobernador in Intramuros, Manila, on July 11, 2023. (Juan Carlo de Vela)*
Garcia made the statement during a press briefing on Tuesday, June 11, on the topic of security in relation to the proposed internet voting for overseas Filipino voters since it involves verification to know if the registered voter is the one who is actually voting under the name. According to Garcia, the oldest fingerprint in its database is from 2003. Given this, he added that it's difficult to countercheck a single fingerprint against the 68 million voters that the country has now. "If only we can annul the list of voters and conduct a general registration of voters in preparation for the 2028 elections, so that yung database of the Comelec ay ma-uupdate din po (will also be updated)," he said. "Lucky for us, our present system, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) is still functioning very well. We were able to verify 491,000 voters who are double multiple registrants na pinatanggal po natin ngayon sa ating Election Registration Board," he added. The AFIS, Garcia said, only makes use of four fingers but internationally, he said that 10 fingers are now being used. It also includes an iris as well as a facial scan. But still using the AFIS, Garcia said that they were still able to detect a total of 491,000 double/multiple registrants. He explained that they could do more if the system will be improved and if the list will start from scratch. By 2028, he said that no one will be able to vote from one province to another or from one city to another. "There should be changes, especially on the database of the Commission...We need to annul the list of voters, and we need to have kahit four days na registration of voters para back to zero lahat in preparation for 2028," Garcia said. However, Garcia said that this will require a law because there is a need for a budget to conduct registration for four days. "Mayroon tayo ngayon 68 million voting population ng bansa sa regular voters tapos 25 million ang ating Sangguniang Kabataan (SK). Kung paparehistro ka muli, ganun kadami magpaparehistro tapos kasama pa yung sa overseas. Kung izezero mo uli lahat, kakailangan ng Comelec ng budget. Hindi mo makakaya sa regular budget lang namin para sa registration (We currently have 68 million regular voters and 25 million for SK. That's the number of voters who will register again just in case including the overseas voters. If we will go back to zero, Comelec will need more budget. Our regular budget for registration will not be able to handle this many)," Garcia explained. Garcia said that this is not the first time that the entire voter list has been annulled. He stated that a general registration was held back in 2023.