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This Monday, May 9, marks another leap in the history of our country. The Filipino people will be casting their votes and electing a new set of leaders in hope that genuine social change will come and the long list of seemingly unending problems of our nation will be solved. All these hopes, represented by our ballots, depends on the efficiency and reliability of the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) which are considered by election watchdogs as unsecured and ineffective.

This will be the third automated elections. However, the criticisms and allegations of manipulation in the outcome of both the 2010 and 2013 elections remains up in the air. Worse, we can see that even more problems are rising from the conduct of the 2016 national elections.

One of these is the source code of the counting machine chosen by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). The Precinct Count Optical Scanner (PCOS) and VCM, both owned by Smartmatic, have source codes that were not inspected. This would imply that the counting machines may have already been programmed to count and transmit votes in favor of certain candidates. An example would be the 60-30-10 controversy in the 2013 elections which also remains unresolved. Cases of miscounted votes were also reported during the absentee voting for overseas Filipino workers (OFW) last month. It seems that winners were already packaged before the elections on May 9.

Adding to the fear of electoral fraud, Comelec suddenly retrenched last week, for unknown reasons, the VCM technicians trained to manage the said machines. The commission also issued a resolution which does not explicitly mandate Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) to check and solve technical issues that may occur on Monday. For the canvassing, election returns will not be carrying digital signatures which ensures its authenticity to prevent the returns to be replaced with fake memory cards.

Furthermore, according to Comelec, electronically transmitted election returns will be the only basis for the proclamation of winning candidates. This poses a great threat to the voters in the Cordillera. Smartmatic reported that majority of the areas in this region have problematic cellphone signals. It was estimated that 60 percent of the precincts in the Cordillera may experience transmission glitches during the Election Day.

Recent news regarding the hacking of the Comelec website, which caused the leak of personal information of every registered voter in the country, shows the unpreparedness and vulnerability of the commission to information theft and manipulation.

With these anomalies, the goal for a clean and honest elections is further from the reach of the Filipino people. It seems that the Comelec and the administration are more inclined towards electoral fraud than realizing the politics of change, the politics for the poor and marginalized. It is now in the hands of the 55 million voters along with the rest of the nation not only to vote wisely but to secure their collective votes.

Although having no official validation, voters can verify if their votes are correctly read by the machine through the receipts. In case of mismatches or uncounted votes, voters must seek the help of poll watchers in filing a protest with the BEI. This situation must also be reported to election watchdogs and media outlets monitoring the progress of the elections.

Beyond this, voters, citizens and everyone who care must be vigilant and ready to take appropriate actions against electoral malice and fraud. All have to be ready to firmly assert, the sanctity of their ballot, their right to their choice of representation and assert firmly that the voice of the people be realized in the results of the May 9 elections. On this day, and in the next three or six years, our votes shall begin to play a role at addressing the true needs of the Filipino people and in shaping the future we choose for our country. # nordis.net