2010: Automated polls the only way to go

I bumped into Makati Business Club’s Bertie Lim at the Tower Club after their board meeting, and met Gus Lagman who presented to the MBC board the Open Election System (OES) being advocated by the group of former Comelec and Namfrel chairman Christian Monsod. We can’t overemphasize the importance of the coming 2010 elections since it can help set the direction this country will be taking not only in terms of politics but in all other aspects of society. Lagman avers there is really a need to automate the election process since the current system takes too long, with about 25 to 40 days before the winners in the national level are announced and proclaimed. Compounding the problem are the “magicians” who have their heyday every election with “dagdag-bawas” operations and other tricks like resurrecting dead voters, flying voters, “carbonizing,” ballot marking and snatching and stuffing of ballots.

People know the sly stroke of a pen can change original polling precinct results on the certificates of canvas the minute they reach the municipal or provincial level. For instance, the original tally of “1437” can be changed to “4437” or “4487” in favor of a certain candidate. Another trick is simply to add another digit before or after the number, to get “11437” or “14371” which totally changes the whole tally. The Comelec has asked for P11.3 billion to automate the election process by 2010, with the poll body favoring the optical mark reader (OMR) over the Direct Recording Electronic system or DRE. A Comelec official even claims that vote counting can be done faster than in the US if the budget is released, and provided that rebels will not bomb cell sites. (Incidentally, the OMR reportedly costs only P8 billion so people are wondering why the Comelec is asking for P11.3 billion.)

While automation can indeed speed up the process from voting to counting, Lagman points out that automation can also speed up cheating and manipulation of votes especially if the process is not transparent to the public. The OMR operates pretty much like the Lotto where a machine reads the pre-printed ballots marked by voters while DRE makes use of “touch screen” technology after which votes are counted electronically. In both technologies, the process of recording and counting are unseen by the public. Aside from that, the software programs and the codes are known only to the Comelec and the winning bidder, which could open up accusations again of collusion, cheating and manipulation. Of course, it goes without saying that the system must be made secure since it is a well-known fact that a determined and brilliant hacker can penetrate even the most sophisticated firewall – which is why there has to be a way to double check the accuracy and veracity of the posted results.

According to Lagman, automation per se should not be seen as the be-all and end-all of the electoral process. The focus should be on the credible conduct of the elections where the results are accepted by the people as reflective of their true will. Thus, it is critical that the whole process is made transparent to the public. OES, says Lagman (who is the past president of the Philippine Computer Society and has headed Namfrel parallel counts in 10 elections) will solve this dilemma since it will combine manual voting and counting at the precinct level with automation done in the encoding of election returns into ordinary PCs (computers) located within the voting center, after which the data is uploaded to a website that is accessible to the public.

Admittedly, the downside to the OES is the manual voting and tallying which is tedious but Lagman says this will take five to 12 hours or in extreme cases, 24 hours and once the results are encoded in the PCs, the transmission and uploading to the websites will be fast, with Namfrel and representatives of political parties able to download the data to their cellphones – which makes it easy for watchers to cross-check the figures against the “original” election results which are posted on the door of every precinct. Another plus factor is the fact that the OES - developed in cooperation with the faculty and graduate students of the UP Department of Computer Science - is more cost effective at only P4 billion, and will not require storage costs since the PCs can be given to the Department of Education afterwards.

Interestingly, even National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales reportedly favors OES since he believes it will help dispel problems of credibility and transparency. After all, it’s not speed that will make elections credible but transparency. There seems to be some sense in the OES since it is the cheaper alternative, will not thoroughly disorientate the voting public who might get initially intimidated at the new technology (and thus make mistakes in the process), and will give believable results since it is conducted with transparency using “open source” software. But there seems to be some resistance coming from some sectors, which is really puzzling to many.

While we agree on the need to automate the electoral process, we share the concern of many that the money should be “spent wisely.” Let’s not worry about bid rigging since the World Bank is not involved in this one. Today, it’s no secret that there are still some remnant groups out to oust GMA. But let’s face it, it is already too late and the 2010 elections will pave the way for the changes people want to see. And with that change, it goes without saying that these scandals and accusations will probably be resolved by the next administration. The bottom line is that we need to move now because the only way to go in 2010 is automation - albeit done in a transparent manner - if we want meaningful change to happen in this country.

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