The Philippine Online Chronicles

AES Watch, at a presscon held at Club Filipino last January 18, 2010, presented the group’s rating on 20 areas of concern for the 2010 automated elections. These 20 items fell into four categories (1) setting up; (2) trustworthiness of the internal workings of the machine; (3) training of personnel and voters’ education and (4) contingency plans.

What is AES Watch?

The Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch), pronounced as “eyes watch”, is an independent, voluntary group of citizen organizations and volunteers who are promoting clean elections and ensuring that the May 2010 elections, whether fully or semi-automated or even manual, are conducted with all safeguards in place. A background on AES Watch can be found on our Scribd page.

Rating Methodology

The 20 items identified were rated according to how prepared Comelec is to properly implement automated elections in May. That preparedness was based on its compliance with its timetable/milestones, provisions of RA 9369, and the Terms of Reference (ToR) submitted to the bidders for the automation, as well as how it responded to concerns put forth and requests from various stakeholders regarding data and security.

AES Watch then prepared its System Trustworthiness, Accountability & Readiness (STAR) Scorecard which gave each item one of the following grades according to their definition:

PASS – an activity is timely and properly accomplished

WARNING– time is running out for Comelec to finish the activity without compromising the reliability of the system or to respond to issues and concerns raised by stakeholders

DANGER – deadline had been breached, leaving Comelec little time to recover in preparing for a successful automated election

FAIL – concerns which Comelec can no longer satisfactorily deliver or remedy

The 20 Items and their Ratings

AES Watch said that as of October 10, 2009, 10 out of 27 activities due for completion last January 15, 2010 were not completed. Foremost of these was the delay in delivering the PCOS machines. Last December 17, the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) asked Comelec to respond to the 20 concerns raised by January 4 but till date of the presscon, no response was received.

Based on their ratings, NO ITEM got a PASS. Eleven items got a WARNING. Eight items got a DANGER. And one item got a FAIL. Overall, AES Watch’s assessment is that the automated elections are in danger.

Here are the 20 items AES Watch listed, the premise made, current status, and rating given:

Setting Up

1. Smartmatic Delivery of Hardware/Software Components to Comelec

Premise: Various hardware/software components have to be developed, customized, manufactured, delivered, configured and/or tested to have a fully functioning AES

Actual status: As of January 9, 2010, only about 15,000 machines out of 75,000 arrived.

Rating Given: DANGER

2. Quality of Machines

Premise: All machines delivered should undergo all quality assurance tests specified in the ToR. The system should be able to count the voter’s vote as marked on the ballot with 99.995% accuracy rating.

Actual status: AES Watch asks if the remaining time is adequate to do all activities necessary under RA 9369 Sec. 11 for Telecommunication Engineering Center (TEC) to come out with its certification 3 months before May 10, or February 10, 2010.

Rating Given: DANGER

3. Technology Certification

Premise: RA 9369 Sec 11 states that 3 months before Election Day (Feb. 10, 2010) “the AES, including its hardware and software components, should be certified as operating properly, securely and accurately in accordance with the provisions of the law...”

Actual status: AES Watch asks if Comelec can ensure that all machines will actually pass the tests

Rating Given: WARNING

4. Availability of Transmission Facilities

Premise: Under the ToR, Comelec requires that transmission capability cover all clustered precincts for the electronic delivery of elections results to different canvassing levels. AES Watch asks if there are enough such facilities.

Actual status: There is no functional geographic info system on location/adequacy of telco facilities, road networks and power lines throughout the country.

Rating Given: WARNING

5. Deployment of Machines

Premise: Identification of warehouse hubs, final delivery points, various modes of transportation from warehouse hubs to final delivery points, deployment schedules

Actual status: AES Watch asks: In the absence of a functional Geographic Information System (GIS), how can Comelec ensure that machines will reach their destination and still be functional given prevailing local conditions of road and sea networks in the Philippines?

Rating Given: WARNING

6. Physical Security of Machines

Premise: Comelec was asked how it plans to secure all machines, including the compact flash (CF) cards from the time they are delivered to assigned locations to the time they are pulled out to ensure that none is lost or tampered with.

Actual status: No updates from Comelec

Rating Given: WARNING

7. Precinct-Specific Ballots

Premise: RA 9369 provides for the right number of ballots per clustered precinct. Since ballots will be pre-printed with names of candidates for specific localities, there will be more than 1,600 ballot faces.

Actual status: AES Watch asks: With pending appeals of disqualified candidates, will Smartmatic have enough time to finish customization and printing of ballots and customization of machines?

Rating Given: WARNING

8. Resource Inventory at the Voting Centers

Premise: AES requested update on available resources in each voting center including power supply and periods of operation as well as IT-capable personnel for the Board of Inspectors (BEIs) and Board of Canvassers (BOCs)

Actual status: No official site survey report for the entire country has been released to-date.

Rating Given: WARNING

9. Adequate General Instructions

Premise: General instructions governing consolidation, transmission and canvassing of votes as well as general instructions for the BEIs on voting, counting and transmission of election results should be issued.

Actual status: Drafts of general instructions have been issued but there has been no response regarding request for refinement to take into account comments from stakeholders, i.e., security of private keys, canvassing, etc.

Rating Given: DANGER

Internal Systems and Trustworthiness

1. Source Code

Premise: Release of the source code of the Election Management System (EMS), Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS), consolidation/canvassing systems (CCS), transmission programs and other programs for review by interested political parties and groups per RA 9369 Sec. 12

Actual status: RA 9369 Sec. 12 was not complied with because the source code was not made available

Rating Given: FAIL

2. Verifiability of Voting and Results at all Canvassing Levels

Premise: A voter should be able to verify that his marks on the ballot are properly translated by the PCOS into votes. Municipal BOCs, provincial BOCs and national BOCs should be able to verify the authenticity and due execution of the Election Returns (ER), Statement of Votes (SOV) and Certificates of Canvass (COC).

Actual status: Voter verification is a disabled function, a violation of RA 9369 Sec. 7, which states that the AES must provide the voter a system of verification to find out if the machine registered his choice. AES Watch is awaiting general instructions on canvassing.

Rating Given: DANGER

3. Secured Transmission of Election Results

Premise: AES Watch asks if Comelec can ensure secured transmission, in particular, will private keys (pin code) be individually generated, used for signing, and held for safekeeping by the teachers (BEI and BOC) themselves

Actual status: The draft general instructions and even Comelec Resolution 8739 is silent about many things with respect to procedures/mechanics for making transmissions secure.

Rating Given: WARNING

4. Initialization of Machines

Premise: Under the ToR, all AES machines should be cleared or “zeroed out” to show that there are no entries/votes in the PCOS memory. However it does not require the machine to show there are no ballot images stored in the machine memory prior to voting.

Actual status: Zeroing out of machines does not guarantee that there are no entries/votes in the PCOS memory. RA 9369 and TOR are silent regarding possible storage of ballot images in the machine memory prior to voting.

Rating Given: WARNING

5. Manual Audit of Vote Counts

Premise: Sample size for audit of one precinct per congressional district is low. AES Watch asks who will do the auditing.

Actual status: The Random Manual Audit Committee (RMAC) will perform the auditing but AES Watch takes exception to the fact that its members are from Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), which is part of the Comelec Advisory Council. They believe RMAC should be independent.

Rating Given: WARNING

Training of Personnel & Voters’ Education

1. Training of Technical Personnel and Members of the BEI and BOC

Premise: RA 9369 Sec. 3 provides that at least one member of the BEI shall be an IT-capable person who is trained or certified by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to use the AES. Sec. 5 of same law provides that BOCs shall be assisted by IT-capable person authorized to operate the equipment adopted for the elections.

Actual status: Comelec Executive Director Jose Tolentino stated on Dec. 17, 2009 that the training for BEIs will start March 18, cutting short time allotted for training and certification. Current reports show growing fear among teachers that this delay will leave them inadequately trained to operate the machine.

Rating Given: DANGER

2. Stakeholder Education and Training

Premise: Pulse Asia’s October 2009 survey revealed 60% of Filipinos have little or almost no knowledge about the AES.

Actual status: Latest surveys show Filipinos lack knowledge and trust on the AES

Rating Given: DANGER

3. Precinct Assignment of Voters

Premise: Due to clustering of precincts, majority of voters will likely go to new polling places.

Actual status: AES Watch has not received response yet on request for update on preparation of voters list for each of the clustered precincts and on plan for informing voters of new precinct assignments, especially on election day.

Rating Given: WARNING

Contingency Plans

1. Continuity Plan

Premise: AES Watch asks if Comelec is ready for rules in the event that full manual or partial AES becomes inevitable or for occurrence of other failure scenarios

Actual status: Comelec’s failure scenarios are focused on PCOS (inability to scan, print and transmit) and planned actions are to replace PCOS or go manual. AES Watch believes there are a lot more than just three kinds of failure that the BEI will encounter on election day (i.e., tampered PCOS machine, etc)

Rating Given: DANGER

2. Electoral Protest Mechanism

Premise: AES is supposed to make cheating difficult, if not impossible. However, there is still the possibility of protests from candidates and interested parties.

Actual status: There are no legal provisions specific to the AES to cover electoral protests (i.e., appeal for recount, discrepancies in printed and transmitted results, etc.)

Rating Given: WARNING

3. Alternative Election System in Some Parts of the Country

Premise: AES Watch asks what preparations are being undertaken to implement a manual election system in some parts of the country.

Actual status: There are no clear plans for an alternative election system.

Rating Given: DANGER

Prof. Bobby Tuazon of Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), the organization which conducted the research, explains why they rated the Comelec’s automated elections as being in the danger zone and says Comelec has to prepare for manual counting contingencies.

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I also spoke with Gus Lagman, one of those I worked with closely during NAMFREL’s Operation Quick Count days in the 1984 and 1986 elections. Gus, a veteran IT practitioner, was one of those who filed in 2004 to stop the use of Mega Pacific’s counting machines for the elections. Gus gives his insights on the following areas:

1. The areas that should and should not have been automated

2. Why the sequence of preparing the COCs and SOVs is wrong

3. Includes references to former SC Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban’s recent columns in which Justice Panganiban is already calling for preparations for manual elections.

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It would seem now that the ball is in Comelec’s court. AES Watch says there is still time to prepare contingency plans but each day, this window of opportunity grows smaller. I hope action will be swift and speedy. For our own sake and that of the country’s.

Photo and videos by author. Some Rights Reserved.

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