Comelec scored for 'demonizing' poll automation critics

MANILA, Philippines – The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPeg) lashed out at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and winning bidder Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) for “demonizing” critics of poll automation.

CenPeg director Bobby Tuazon said Smartmatic-TIM should be discerning enough to “distinguish critics who are calling for open, credible, and transparent automated elections from those who are against the automation simply because it may prevent cheating which was rampant during the previous manual election system.”

Tuazon said that CenPeg finds the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines system “vulnerable to wholesale electronic cheating.”

The statement was in reaction to the pronouncement of Smartmatic chief executive Antonio Mugica that people who gained from manual polls “politically or financially” are naturally against automated elections, which are more transparent.

Smartmatic-TIM won the lease contact to supply some 82,200 PCOS machines that will be used by the Comelec in the May 10, 2010 local and national polls.

CenPeg alleged that the Smartmatic-TIM’s machines’ “lack of transparency makes (them) susceptible to automated cheating aside from (their) being prone to machine errors and hardware deficiencies.”

Tuazon added that CenPeg favors automated elections but the “Comelec’s choice of technology runs counter to the democratic principle of secret voting and public counting.”

He said that Comelec could not claim to be transparent when the technology does not comply with the requirements of public counting and transparency.

“By shutting all doors to criticisms, critical questions and public debates, the Comelec shows its aversion to transparency.” Tuazon added. – Sheila Crisostomo