Data disk switching to replace ballot box snatching?

Before it was ballot box snatching. Soon it could be data disk switching.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. raised yesterday the possibility that next year’s national polls will be marred by incidents of data disk snatching and switching.

At a forum in Quezon City, Pimentel said the decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to automate the May 10 elections has opened the door to an easier "dagdag-bawas" (addition and subtraction of votes) operation.

"A big problem of these counting machines is that they do not send results to Manila directly. There is a big danger that disk snatching and switching will happen at the time the diskettes (containing the tabulation data) are transferred from the counting machines to the transmission machines," the opposition senator said.

According to Pimentel, the small size of the diskette makes it easier for the switching to be done.

Pimentel suggested that to prevent incidents of diskette snatching and switching, the Comelec should allow representatives of political parties to monitor and closely watch the transfer of diskettes containing the tabulated votes from the counting machines to the transmission machines.

Pimentel, whose PDP-Laban party is allied with the united opposition, is seriously considering running for president. His second and last term as senator ends next year.

With the new automated counting system, the Comelec promises to name the winning presidential bet within 30 hours after the 250,000 voting precincts nationwide close and not after several days or weeks, as was the case when the counting was done manually.

The Comelec has allocated P3 billion for the entire project to include the purchase of 1,191 counting machines at P1.7 billion each and transmitting machines at P300 million each.

Comelec officials have earlier declared that the automated counting machines could not be tampered with. The poll body added that ACMs would be used nationwide for the May 10, 2004 elections, and not only in selected areas as proposed by Congress.