Comelec: Around 1M voter applicants had duplicate fingerprints

The number of individuals who have double or multiple registrations for the May 2025 polls reached at least 1.2 million, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairperson George Erwin Garcia said Friday.

According to Garcia, the Comelec monitored the duplicate fingerprints through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) from February to September.

“Nakita ng AFIS natin. Dyan natin pinapatunayan na dun sa mga doble o ilang beses magpaparehistro, kaya po namin kayong makita,” said Garcia.

(We found this out through our AFIS. This goes to show that those who will attempt to apply for voter registration multiple times will be flagged by the Comelec.)

The Comelec Elections and Affairs Department started filing election offenses against those who have AFIS hits. However, Garcia earlier said the poll body would still investigate the possible reasons for the duplicate entries.

“Kahit nakita na ganon kadami, tatanggalin ay kalahati. Ibig sabihin nun, ‘yung iba may matitira na dati nilang registration. ‘Yung oldest registration nila ang matitira dahil ang karapatan na bumoto ay ginagarantiya ng Saligang Batas. Ang Comelec ay walang kapangyarihan na basta na lang magpatanggal ng pangalan sa listahan,” Garcia said.

(We will remove half of them. This means that the oldest registration of those who have AFIS hits will remain. The right to suffrage is guaranteed under the Constitution. And, Comelec has no power to remove the names of voters in the list of registered voters.)

Latest data from the Comelec showed the number of voters for the 2025 NLE and Bangsamoro elections totalled over 68 million. — BAP, GMA Integrated News