The Philippine Online Chronicles

The upcoming elections this May 10 is scaring the bejeezus out of me. The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) can keep on issuing press releases to try to assuage our fears of election failure but there are so many holes in the system and process.

Just why am I worried and why you should be?

1. The lack of education on the use of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines

The automation is something very new to us. We’ve been voting manually for more than a century so the PCOS is really foreign territory. Sure, the instructions are on the internet but what about those who don’t have online access? Is the Sexbomb’s “Bilog Na Hugis Itlog” all they are going to get?

2. Training of IT experts is insufficient

Last year, Election Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal announced that they need 50,000 IT expert volunteers who will act as technical support during the elections. During last year’s launch of BagongBotante.ph where COMELEC and Smartmatic officials were present, I expressed my worry regarding this issue. Mr. James Jimenez reassured me and those at the event that it will only take 30 minutes to train the volunteers. I am assuming that they were able to recruit by now. Well I hope to God that number has been filled! Even so, I seriously doubt 30 minutes will suffice for trainings. Heck, I don’t even think 1 day is enough. During the demonstrations and mock elections, a number of technical problems arose and some of them weren’t solved. Considering that there were any IT technicians and even COMELEC officials were already there, how much more when it’s election time and only 1 or 2 IT experts are present? Another thing to consider is if the volunteers will tinker with the machines in order for the outcome to be in favor of their desired candidates.

3. The source code still hasn’t been released

Let’s say that everything runs smoothly and the citizens were able to vote for the candidates they want, there is still a possibility that results can be manipulated through the source code. Smartmatic doesn’t have a pristine record with regard to manufacturing voting machines.

Smartmatic used to be Sequoia Voting Systems which has a record for manufacturing flawed voting machines such as the AVC Advantage 9.00H DRE Voting Machine. Also, Smartmatic is a Valenzuelan-owned company and “close to the government of Hugo Chavez.” Not bad by itself but it is still a risk to national security and possible fraud .

The source code should be made public NOW. It takes time to study it and search for bugs and/or easter eggs. Non-partisan IT experts are demanding the release of the source code for review. Why hasn’t the COMELEC done so by now? I don’t see any reason for the delay since the program is already installed in the machines.

4. The PCOS Machine itself

The mock elections gave us a glimpse of how those machines work. Some machines weren’t able to read the ballots because of the scanning sensitivity. Adjustments to its scanning sensitivity, man-made or as a result of rocky conditions during transport, can render the machine unable to read ballots. If this occurs, will the IT on standby be able to correct it?

In the past manual elections, reports of goons seizing, tampering, and destroying the ballot boxes were reported. The PCOS isn’t immune to this. It isn’t fireproof, it isn’t waterproof, and goons can still seize them.

The machines are precinct-specific, meaning that voters registered in Precinct A wouldn’t be able to vote in Precinct B, C, D, etc. This safety measure makes use of the barcode of the ballot which is also precinct-specific. COMELEC made use of a back-up PCOS machine when there was a problem during a mock election. With the precinct-specific barcodes, how will the back-up machines accept the ballots during election? Does that mean that the back-up machines can accept any barcode? If that is the case, they are very susceptible to flying votes. Even more susceptible since those back-up PCOS machines will be transported around during the election period. Goons can steal those back-up machines and feed it any ballot regardless of its barcode.

We were informed that only the there is only one key per machine. Can you guess why I am worried about that?

5. There are no extra ballots

The paper ballot doesn’t have any room for errors. If a voter accidentally makes a mark outside of the circle, his vote won’t be counted. I am 100% sure this instance will happen more than once during election itself. What if an “accident” happens like somebody throws water on all the ballots? Will the PCOS still be able to read it?

What if some ballots get sent to the wrong precinct? Or there is enough delay for a malicious printer to reproduce ballots for a particular precinct? Hey, these are still possible.

hoto from Kontradaya.org. Some rights reserved.

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