Last week, the Commission on Elections quietly relaunched iRehistro—the web site where you can supply the Comelec with your information by answering a series of questions, and print it out as a completed voter registration application form. And after you do that, you can also book an appointment with the Comelec office where you intend to register, without having to use a different program or application.
No, it’s not online registration
Obviously, iRehistro falls short of being a complete online voter registration solution. In fact, the opening screen itself reminds the user that “accomplishing this online form DOES NOT mean that you are already a registered voter.” However, it will contribute much to the Comelec’s Covid-safe protocols—protocols which, incidentally, have given voter registration the enviable record of having no recorded cases or instances of Covid-19 transmission.
Without iRehistro, a person would have to wait until he or she gets into the office in order to be given a form. This after having waited in queue for the person ahead of him to finish and exit the premises. Once the registrant gets the form, he needs to accomplish it, while inside the office, and this means that the next person in line has to also wait for him to finish, extending the waiting time of everyone in queue after him.
And because Comelec offices aren’t the most spacious places, you can only have a very limited number people in them at any one time. With social distancing rules, some will even be able to accommodate only one applicant at a time—literally. So let’s not even argue about why we can’t have people off to one side filling up forms while others do whatever. It’s not likely to happen, and even if it did, it would endanger people and that is non-negotiable.
All told, going to the Comelec office, queueing up, and filling out the form can take you about 20 to 30 minutes, whereas the actual business of getting registered— basically the biometrics part of the whole process—only takes about 5 to 10 minutes. iRehistro, in effect, allows the registrant to bypass the long queue, so that they can be quickly processed and directed to the biometrics capturing set-up. All told, that entire registration procedure, facilitated by iRehistro, would not take longer than an average of 5 to 10 minutes.
Don’t sign
The thing about iRehistro, however, is that while it prints out a completely accomplished application form, the applicant isn’t supposed to sign the document until he’s in the Comelec office, before the Election Officer. This is because of a provision in Republic Act 8189, and it’s one of the two major bummers keeping us from going fully online with voter registration.
With the exception of that one crazily counter-intuitive caveat, going through the iRehistro process is actually pretty smooth. The form is well-designed and generous with tooltips and onscreen reminders, so it should be easy enough for anyone to use. All you need to get you started is to point your browser to https://irehistro.comelec.gov.ph. Do not forget the “S” in “https;” irehistro is a secure site and without the “s” in “https,” well you’re just not going to get where you want to go.