What are we to do now?

We are only months away from the Philippine presidential elections of 2016 yet it is not clear how the elections will be held or conducted. This is worrying.

BayanKo adviser, Jose Alejandrino wrote that the shift to an automated voting system is the source of the problems.

“The introduction of automated voting systems has injected a new dimension few can fathom. It has made it easier to manipulate voting results by unseen hands to favor candidates external powers deem “malleable,” “controllable” and “manageable” to fit their agenda in countries that are considered strategic such as the Philippines because of its location.

 It happened in Latin America. It happened in Edsa to dislodge a dictator. It happened in previous Philippine elections.

The injection of a new dimension was facilitated by a corrupt environment. In some Latin American countries, control was exercised traditionally through the ruling established orders made up of big business, the military, and the church, or the conservative factions that were the right-wing elements. The arrival of the Fidel Castros and the Hugo Chavezes began a process of transformation towards the marginalized sectors. Thus they were viewed as a threat by the dominant external power in the region.

Filipino politicians are mere pawns in this big game of chess for the simple reason they do not understand the dynamics of the process, being more concerned with enriching themselves and staying in power.

Sooner or later, the cycle will break as Filipino voters realize their votes no longer count, their democracy is a farce, they are being manipulated by internal and external forces working together to maintain the status quo.

Change may take the form of a peaceful transition to a new constitutional order or a violent revolution, but change will come as is happening in Latin America.”

Automated voting system is unfit for democratic elections.

It is good that the critics of automated voting systems have sustained their attacks against Smartmatic-PCOS. Rene Azurin sent this column a reply to Andy Bautista, the new Comelec chairman.

“First, it has no transparency. With the way the system is set up, the public and independent observers have no idea what the machine is doing or what results it is reporting.

Second, there is no way the votes can be verified or audited.

With important security protocols disabled, the public and independent observers cannot verify what votes are being counted or audit the results reported.

Third, it is not accurate. The Smartmatic machines have never been shown to be able to meet the accuracy standards prescribed in the law (99.995%).”

He adds that “the greatest danger of the Comelec/Smartmatic system will come from insiders who can easily manipulate the system from within. They can manipulate the system to produce any result they want and no one can check and control this. “

“With important security protocols disabled – like digital signatures, source code review, write-once CF memory devices, independent (trusted) public verification of correct software code installation in the machines before deployment and then again after deployment at the various precincts just before start of voting, properly designed random manual audits, etc., etc. – the public and independent observers have no way of verifying and authenticating the count or the results reported.

 Basically, we are all forced to accept whatever Smartmatic/Comelec reports as the results. This is NOT democratic.

Anyone with what is called “root access” can change the logs and no one would be the wiser.

Besides, manipulating the results by outsiders will most likely be done by changing the configurations of the rewritable CF cards or by pre-marking the ballots. More sophisticated methods involve transmitting fabricated results from PCOS machines other than the precinct machines and by introducing malicious code into the PCOS machines and canvassing servers, actions that can be readily done by insiders with access and intent. In 2013, there was a deliberate stoppage of transmissions to the Transparency Server about 2 hours into the canvassing to allow a Smartmatic technician to illegally fiddle with the scripts (program codes). At that time, some 20 million votes were supposed to have already been tallied for an absurdly small number of precincts and continuing the tallying at that rate would have resulted in the votes exceeding the registered number of voters. After that, there was another mysterious 44-hour lull in the transmission of votes from the precincts to the national canvassing servers (including the so-called Transparency Server).

The fact is, the relationship between our Comelec and an unqualified (and discredited) Smartmatic offering a defective election system looks and feels perverted and evil.”

This column has received criticism of the Smartmatic-PCOS from a new source. It comes from Marian Schmid, a supplier from Germany. According to its Filipino partners, its bid never even got a chance to be looked at by Comelec.

Schmid writes:

“The OMR (pcos) of Smartmatic are unreliable due to certain features that don’t accurately reflect the votes cast by Juan Dela Cruz. Apparently, the massive rigging occurs in the transmission of votes from precinct level to national level. There is a SERVER that is controlled by Smartmatic and Comelec! Apparently, the software in the server of Smartmatic is not hashed (in layman’s term, instead of secured PDF file, read only, it’s on Word. Thus, Comelec can change the numbers eg: 60% to party A, 30% to party B and 10% to party C). That means the software of Smartmatic can be tampered and can be accessed by third parties!

The post audit firms must be credible and not under the payroll of Smartmatic…. The question is who will conduct the independent audit of the post election results?”

So what is to happen in 2016?  Here’s the answer from former senator and Philippine Red Cross chairman and CEO Richard “Dick” Gordon:

“With the way the Supreme Court has been sitting on the cases filed regarding the automated elections and the Comelec again leaving to Smartmatic the fate of our elections – I fear that 2016 would not be any different from the previous elections – our taxpayers’ money wasted on substandard and dubious Smartmatic PCOS machines; votes not only uncounted but diverted due to source code manipulations; elected officials being sworn in not with the people’s mandate but by the power of corrupted and corrupt computer programming. This is what we should start preparing for instead of focusing on candidates.

If we, you, and our people, do not act now and force the Comelec to fully and properly implement the automated election system, we just have to accept the fact that we will be again hoodwinked in 2016.”