EDITORIAL - .0001 percent is enough for Murphy's Law

At a forum held at the Marcelo B. Fernan Cebu Press Center last Monday, Smartmatic-TIM officials spared almost nothing in extolling the virtues of poll automation, which is expected to be used for the first time in the 2010 presidential elections.

The supreme confidence heaped on its electronic system by the Venezuelan firm that won the bidding to automate the coming political exercise is best summed up by its assurance that it will be 99.999 percent accurate.

And that is precisely the problem. The people are being made to believe that the system is virtually perfect despite the undeniable fact that, all throughout human experience, we have repeatedly learned valuable lessons about things that are too good to be true.

Smartmatic-TIM already has the P7.2 billion contract in the bag. The Supreme Court has even already upheld its validity. In other words, there is no more need to lay on the butter too thick as if failure to be convincing can still make any difference.

What Smartmatic-TIM should instead do is prime the people about the .0001 percent probability that things can go horribly wrong with the count on election day. Or maybe it can even do better by not playing with the dots and zeroes and just be ready for Murphy’s Law.

During the forum, Smartmatic-TIM officials boasted that in the run-up to the elections, the company will be hiring tens of thousands of people, making it perhaps the biggest employer outside of government.

And there’s the rub. Having too many people on board can be unwieldy and excruciating. It is a nightmare that managers worth their salt would not be so smug about as to make pitches about near-perfection.

Somewhere along that very long human chain are bound to be numerous weak spots that not even the best systems in the world can hope to detect and remedy in time, especially since, by its own words, there are still many aspects Smartmatic-TIM has to iron out with Comelec.

We have nothing against poll automation. Indeed, we fully support it. We cannot forever stagnate, especially in the matter of politics which most Filipinos are so passionate about. But we should be primed for a bad fall, rather than being lulled to the complacency of fools.