Firm to donate automated voting system for ’07 polls

The company that designed computer systems for the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has offered to donate to the government an automated voting system that could be used in the 2007 elections.

In a statement, Mega Data Corp., the company that supplied the computer system that processes NBI clearances and driver’s licenses, said they would make the automated voting system — dubbed "Botong Pinoy" — available for next year’s elections.

During the 11th Philippine Computer Society Information Technology Congress on June 7, Mega Data chief executive Rafael Garcia III turned over the stewardship of Botong Pinoy to the Philippine Information Technology Community, which is represented by the presidents of participating IT organizations across the country.

Garcia said the Botong Pinoy system could help eradicate electoral fraud, assuring fast and instantaneous tabulation of votes and the immediate transmission of precinct results within the same day.

He said his company also developed a computer system used by the NBI to process security clearances within five minutes, whereas before the procedure took about 30 days.

At the LTO, Garcia said the company’s systems are used to process driver’s licenses in one minute and 20 seconds, a process that once took up to nine months.

Mega Data said they would provide free software to be used during the upcoming elections.

For his part, Edmundo Casiño, director of the Philippine Computer Society (PCS), said they would provide free technical advice if the government, through the Commission on Elections (Comelec), accepts Mega Data’s offer.

The Mega Data system would streamline the registration of voters, voting and ballot counting, and the transmission of the tabulated votes.