Says Comelec ‘way off target’, renews calls for extension of deadline
Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino today urged the Commission on Elections to step up its efforts in encouraging more youth and first-time voters to register for the 2010 elections by conducting “more available and accessible satellite registrations” in schools, barangays and communities.
Palatino said that the Comelec is disturbingly ‘way off target’, citing the agency’s data that as of latest, only 841,200 new voters have registered. “This is a far cry from Comelec’s 3 million target come deadline, and even still …

Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino today warned of a potential ‘cyber-Garci’ as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) finally inked the deal for poll automation in 2010 with partners Smartmatic-TIM.
Palatino said that until Comelec ‘makes public all terms involving the Smartmatic-TIM deal and unless it practices full transparency with regard to the processes, system and implementing rules and guidelines of automation, it will not be able to waylay the public’s apprehension with poll automation.’
“After all the brouhaha and apparent mismanagement, Comelec now owes it to the public to at least have …

Kabataan Party-list Representative Mong Palatino today said that the modernization of elections alone through poll automation may not solve the longstanding problem of election fraud.
“Using technology as a quick fix for the array of problems that have hounded our polls will not automatically solve electoral fraud and other problems. There are more fundamental issues to address and yet the Commission on Elections seems to be caught up in something that it might not just be fully prepared for ,” Palatino said.
Citing experiences from other countries, Palatino said that developed countries …