Secret balloting, public counting

The rule in democratic elections is: secret balloting, public counting. Automation must boost, not mar, it. Secret balloting is guarding the voter’s personal choice; electronics should not conceal the poll process itself. Public counting is open tallying of votes; computers should quicken it without sacrificing accuracy.

The point seems lost on the Comelec. It keeps resisting proposals for a parallel manual count (PMC) of selected positions. Over-simplifying, it prattles that Filipinos are sick and tired of the old, slow manual count and so must go pure automated. The poll body forgets what the problem is. It’s not with manual precinct tallies watched by voters, but with provincial and city canvasses where large-scale dagdag-bawas (padding-shaving) occurs.

After the precinct count optical scanners snafued in last Monday’s test runs, all the more a PMC is needed on May 10, Election Day. It is the only way for the results — and Comelec — to be credible and acceptable.

By today automation supplier Smartmatic should have replaced the compact flash cards of all 76,340 PCOS units to be deployed in precincts. Second test runs should be completed by tomorrow. Even if the machines are now able to correctly read local votes, questions linger about the PCOS integrity. Like, if wrong programming for double-spaced listings caused Monday’s miscounts, how come not all the machines failed? Was the glitch really limited to local balloting, given an NP-Mindoro report that votes were credited to admin presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro, but zero for frontrunners Manny Villar and Noynoy Aquino? What other incompetent programming errors have yet to surface?

Those who suspect outright manipulation may also ask: how come everything looked scripted? First, the PCOS crashed in local voting. Then, the admin lawyer cried for postponement of elections, which Malacañang echoed (but later distanced from). Lastly, 77,000 replacement CF cards suddenly were available in one day from Taiwan and Hong Kong. So, were the cards already in Manila ready for use upon “discovery” of faulty local counts? In reconfiguring the cards to read double- instead of single-space, were cheating codes embedded to favor certain national candidates? Are reports verified that Malacañang high officials are pressuring Comelec to provocatively delay the balloting?

Doubts dominate the electorate’s mood. A PMC would erase worries about the electronic tally. Taking only three hours at P1,000 overtime pay for teachers-precinct inspectors, it would entail counting only the votes for President, VP and mayor. Should there be less than one-percent difference between the PCOS and manual tallies, the inspectors may then transmit the results to the canvassers. But should the variance exceed one percent, then the inspectors must manually count the votes for all positions.

Last Monday’s hitches were but the latest reasons for a PMC. Earlier discarding by Comelec and Smartmatic of election security features gave rise to the idea. For starters, Smartmatic disabled the PCOS on-screen vote verifier, taking away the voter’s only check if the machine is reading his choices right. There was no comprehensive testing of transmission utilities, so it’s unknown if countless precincts can correctly beam tallies for canvass. Smartmatic also switched off the PCOS reader of secret ultraviolet ballot marks. Comelec’s shift to hand-held U/V lamps constitutes a risky human intervention in the automated process; genuine ballots may be declared fake to disenfranchise known voters for the other side. Worst, Comelec did not let parties and info-tech experts to thoroughly review the PCOS source code. Not only was the poll body late in opening the review period that usually takes four months, but also imposed discouraging restrictions. Similarly delayed was the Comelec’s release of the source code test by an internationally recognized certification outfit.

SysTest Lab’s report was given out only last Friday. Tellingly, the Certification Test Result Summary was dated March 8, way past the Comelec’s February 10 deadline under the automation law to secure it. No wonder it couldn’t show the document earlier. The report listed more than 4,000 minor shortcomings that Smartmatic already has corrected. But over a thousand serious flaws remained unresolved till March 8. This meant that Smartmatic was writing the program as SysTest was testing it. This again is a breach of the automation law, which requires that the Comelec adopt a system that has worked in an election in RP or elsewhere.

Two items in SysTest’s summary foretold disaster. “The Ballot Production tool was not subjected to the full certification process; therefore it should not be utilized in the May 10, 2010 election process,” it warned. Did Smartmatic ignore this caveat, and so the PCOS snafued in Monday’s test runs? A PMC would catch more mistakes at the precinct level of the first-ever full automation.

SysTest further stated: “As the modem firmware was not subjected to the full certification process and is required for transmissions, Comelec should request the source code from Smartmatic and have a thorough review conducted for the May 10, 2010 election.” Sadly, there was no such careful test run. Could this mean more snafus — in electronic and therefore unseen transmission of results on Election Day itself? A PMC can prevent mess.

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“To deeply touch the world, one must be deeply in touch with oneself. To fathom the depth of love, one must deeply be in touch with God within and above.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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