The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said voter registrations will end tomorrow, September 30, and that there will be no extensions.
Comelec chairman George Garcia said they are expecting a surge of applicants on the last day, assuring that they are ready to serve them.
The Comelec has no intention to extend the registration period, Garcia reiterated.
He said applications are open until 5 pm for those who are not yet registered, transferred registration, or reactivated.
He said this is also the period where the registration for Filipinos abroad ends.
“We need to end the voter registration by September 30 because we have a hearing with the Election Registration Board on October 13 to approve or disapprove the registrations from July 16 until September 3. Therefore, we need to finish what we call the project of the precinct,” Garcia added.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte meanwhile hailed the Comelec for its issuance of the campaign rules against deepfakes as the filing of certificates of candidacy for the midterm polls draws near.
Villafuerte said he believes the poll body “has a good handle now on checking campaign misinformation and disinformation on cyberspace in the runup to the 2025 elections,” as a result of the commission’s timely release of guidelines on the use by candidates and their supporters or of their rivals of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in next year’s midterm and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) polls.
“I believe the Comelec officials have a good handle now on monitoring and blocking digital disinformation and misinformation in the runup to the campaign season for the elections in May 2025, as an upshot of the Commission’s timely release of our country’s first-ever online campaign guidelines on the rational regulation of AI technology, with an eye to checking the use of deepfakes to unduly vilify or extol particular candidates,” Villafuerte said.
Although the use of AI technology in government processes can certainly improve the delivery of public services, especially with the automation of systems and data management, Villafuerte said.
“Kudos to the Comelec, under the leadership of Chairman Greg (Garcia), in releasing this early the guidelines on AI regulation ahead of the campaign period for the 2025 elections, as AI tools like image generators and voice-cloning software are already being used in elections across the globe for producing and distributing AI-generated visual, audio or audio-visual presentations, and AI chatbots (robots) are being devised for poll bets to get in touch with voters,” he said.
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