BM calls Comelec scheme an automated cheating

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QUEZON CITY — Members of the party list group Bayan Muna picketed the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in Intramuros, Manila last week to denounce the poll body’s preferred automation scheme as a “rip-off” and a “recipe for large-scale automated cheating.”

“We know the bid documents are already out but even at this stage, we appeal to the COMELEC to reconsider its mode of choice for automation in 2010. Its precinct count optical scan (PCOS) system is untested and is a logistical nightmare that opens more avenues for large-scale automated cheating and disenfranchisement of voters,” Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said.

“Besides, at P11.3 billion, PCOS is too steep a price for a system that can be shot with loopholes and bugs. Remember when we were up in arms over Benjamin Abalos’ P1.6 billion Mega Pacific contract? Well that contract is nothing compared to this,” Casiño said.

In lieu of the PCOS, Bayan Muna is supporting the Open Election System (OES) being proposed by various information and technology experts and election watchdogs. The OES maintains manual voting and open counting at the precinct level coupled with automated transmission, canvassing and consolidation up to the national boards of canvassers. The said technology will cost only P4 billion – less than half of the PCOS budget.

“What really needs automation is not the voting and counting at the precinct level, which is open, verifiable and subject to protection by the voters and various election watchdogs.

The biggest problem is in the transmission, canvassing and consolidation of results from the precincts to the city, municipal, provincial and national boards of canvassers. It is in this level, where large-scale dagdag-bawas occurs and where the election syndicates really operate, that automation should be applied,” stressed Casiño.

“Unlike the present system, automated counting by the PCOS machines is not open and the results are not immediately verifiable. Precinct watchers and NAMFREL volunteers will have no way of knowing if the machine counted the votes correctly, or if it sent the correct information to the central server. More importantly, the public will have no way of knowing if data will be manipulated in the central server,” Casiño warned.

He said that without verifiable source documents like manually-filled ballots or election returns (ERs) produced through open counting, victims of cheating will find it impossible to question the results of the automated elections.

In today’s picket, protesters held placards splashed with “Mag-ingat sa automation! Bantayan ang boto!” They depicted the PCOS system as infected with various kinds of viruses called “Hello Garci,” “guns, goons, and gold,” “vote padding,” and “automated cheating.”

An independent study by the Center for People Empowerment and Governance (CENPEG) showed at least 13 weaknesses of the system used during the last ARMM elections, including its reliance on experienced technicians to set up and operate the machines, constant paper jamming and the machine’s rejection of crumpled or folded ballots or those with accidental marks or scratches, discrepancies in ballots cast and votes counted, system crashes, failure of the system to adopt specific problems in the field like failed elections, overheating, and the possibility of advanced shading of ballots by unscrupulous election officers. # www.nordis.net