Smartmatic: Go ahead, conduct manual vote count

MANILA, Philippines - The Venezuelan contractor hired by the Comelec to provide the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines challenged automation critics yesterday to hold a “manual count” of votes if they suspect any irregularities in the transmission of results.

“If they doubt the system, they can check the ballots (inside the PCOS machines),” Cesar Flores, president of Smartmatic-TIM for Southeast Asia, told reporters at the sidelights of the hearing of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms.

He was referring to the manual count on election protests, following complaints by several losing congressmen, governors and mayors that the PCOS machines, or the compact flash cards, transmitted rigged results to the main Comelec server.

The ballots have been retained for verification, in case electoral protests are filed with the Comelec, the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, Senate Electoral Tribunal or the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

As this developed, at least four losing candidates – two governors and two congressmen – revealed yesterday that an election operator had approached them as early as November last year, assuring them of victory in exchange for a huge sum of money.

Governors Robert Ace Barbers of Surigao del Norte and Teresita Lazaro of Laguna, and Reps. Matias Defensor of Quezon City and Munir Arbison of Sulu made this disclosure during the hearing of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms.

With the exception of Arbison, the three confirmed and corroborated verbally during the hearing the statement of Barbers, who lost his re-election bid to Sol Matugas, wife of incumbent Rep. Francisco Matugas, his fiercest rival.

Arbison told Barbers about his case after the hearing.

What was peculiar about the historic automated polls, according to Barbers, was the fact that the supposed election operator told him at the golf course in Camp Aguinaldo about the possible re-configuration of 76,000 compact flash cards.

The meeting took place in November 2009, where the “decent-looking man” asked for a P50 million contract – 35 percent as downpayment last February, another 35 percent in March at the start of the local campaign, and the “balance upon proclamation.”

It was an assurance that his “entire slate” would win in the elections, from governor down the line. To prove that it was not a scam, the guy told him the CF cards will be “replaced with pre-programmed results after the testing,” which occurred on May 5.

“I thought I would have a heart attack, I felt like ice cold water was being poured on my entire body. I remembered the conversation, and the words rang in my ear as if my eardrums would burst. The following events and observations would be very revealing,” Barbers said.

Because he wanted to have faith in the system that would have been “fraud-proof,” he declined the offer, even if he was warned that they will try to offer their services to his opponents in case he rejects the offer.

“Indeed they (my opponents) won, from the governor, vice governor, two congressmen and 21 mayors. Believe it or not! Until now I am having goose bumps every time I remember that meeting,” Barbers narrated further.

Lazaro’s son Dennis lost to Emilio Ejercito in the Laguna gubernatorial race, Arbison (an incumbent congressman) lost in his gubernatorial bid to Abdusakur Tan while Defensor was defeated by neophyte Jorge “Bolet” Banal in the congressional race.

“Our opponents seemed to be overconfident to a point that they barely campaigned throughout the period even if they lagged in all the surveys. My team was sweating it out in the blistering heat while my opponents were staying in the comfort of their homes,” he said.

The same observations were also manifested by Reps. Raul Gonzalez Jr. of Iloilo City, Thomas Dumpit Jr. of La Union and Angelito Gatlabayan of Antipolo City, where their opponents have been bragging about their 20 percent lead in the elections.

During the hearing of Locsin’s committee, Defensor interrupted Barbers and “corroborated” the story that a man also approached him and told him about the recall of the CF cards. “In due time, I’d like to locate the guy,” Defensor said.

Barbers also told the committee that the same offer was made to Laguna Gov. Lazaro.

The tales being peddled by mysterious men about the recall of the CF cards came a week after a masked witness, whom Locsin called a “Koala bear,” came out and bared his purported knowledge about the alleged fraud in the last election.

Barbers also presented a video showing a member of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) trimming the ballot to fit in the PCOS machine.

“I remember in OJ Simpson case, where it was said that if the gloves don’t fit, acquit. In this case, if it doesn’t fit, then make gupit,” Barbers said.

Flores of Smartmatic said the ballot could be folded and the results would still be read accurately as long as the barcode and the ultraviolet marks are kept intact.

Comelec executive director Jose Tolentino said it would still be up to the voter if he does not want to personally feed the ballot, in which case it can be done by any of the members of the BEI.

IT lawyer-expert Al Vitangcol told the Locsin panel the CF cards could indeed be replaced and pre-programmed, but only if the person “has the same program.”

“He simply has to change the coordinates,” he said.

Not the same software

Flores argued the cards cannot be reconfigured because these machines (PCOS) would have never passed. “This can’t be done because if it’s not the same software, the machines will not work. It’s not possible because the fake cards will wipe out everything.”

“The only thing the BEIs can do is to blindly punch the keys (in the machines). No one has access to the security keys. No one knows it outside of the Cabuyao (warehouse),” Smartmatic executive Heider Garcia stressed.

This was confirmed by Dennis Llorente, who is in charge of the automated polls in the Department of Science and Technology.

“The machine will not even read it if it doesn’t have the encrypted keys to it,” he said.

Flores explained that the PCOS machines have “digital signatures in itself,” and that the results are logically “digitally signed,” which means that under the law digital signatures “have been fully complied with.”

Tolentino pointed out that under the law, the provision did not specifically say that the BEI should “digitally sign” either the election returns or certificates of canvass, which means the stringent rule on authenticity and due execution have also been complied with.

New set of precincts

The Supreme Court (SC) was asked yesterday to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to strictly implement the random manual audit of results of the May 10 automated polls as required by law.

In an eight-page petition, losing presidential candidate John Carlos de los Reyes of the Ang Kapatiran party asked the High Court to issue a temporary restraining order compelling Comelec to restart its ongoing manual audit of precincts that were chosen last May 10 due to possible inclusion of tampered ballots.

The party sought the relief “to limit the possibility of auditing tampered ballots.”

It argued that given the delay in the results of the random manual audit, a new set of precincts should be randomly picked so that the Comelec could manually verify whether the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines correctly counted the ballots fed into them.

“Each day that passes increases the risk that the integrity of the ballot boxes in the precincts selected for a random manual audit may be compromised and that the ballots therein tampered,” they argued.

The Automated Election System Law (RA 8436 as amended by RA 9369) provided for a random manual audit of the results in one precinct in a congressional district in a randomly selected city or province, as soon as voting ends.

The law said the random manual audit “shall be conducted continuously until terminated.”

On the morning of May 10, Comelec officials randomly selected the clustered precincts to be audited.

Petitioners, however, stressed that two weeks after the country’s first nationwide automated elections, “the random manual audit of the selected precincts has not yet been finished and respondent Comelec has not made a full disclosure of the reasons for the unjustified delay in the conduct of the random manual audit and the results thereof.”

“Thus there is an urgent need for respondent Comelec to be restrained from continuing with the random manual audit of the precincts randomly selected on May 10, 2010 until said precincts are replaced with new randomly chosen precincts to limit the possibility of auditing tampered ballots,” they added. – With Edu Punay