By Tom S. Noda
Computerworld Philippines
February 16, 2010

As the May 2010 automated national elections draw near, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) appears to be proving its detractors wrong as it indefatigably carries out such a gargantuan task that is history in the making.

In the first two weeks of February alone, Comelec scored several achievements, including source code certification and a favorable ruling by the Supreme Court (SC) on the legality of its P7.2-billion automation contract with the Smartmatic Corp.–Total Information Management (TIM) Inc. consortium or Smartmatic-TIM. The commission is also now armed with 82,000 voting and counting machines.

And as of this writing, plans are being laid out for the creation of a secure private wireless network for the accurate transmission of election results.

SC TRIUMPH
On Comelec’s triumph at the SC, justices rejected the case filed by the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) led by lawyer Harry Roque of the Roque and Butuyan Law Offices for lack of new substantial argument. The justices’ vote was 13-2.

Roque, a UP professor, accused Comelec last year of violating the law with regards to the requirement that the poll body must first conduct a pilot test in at least two highly-urbanized cities before awarding a contract. He also alleged that the consortium of Smartmatic-TIM failed to meet the legal process for the bidding since its incorporation was not applied with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when the bidding took place.

According to the 15-page decision penned by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco, Chief Justice Reynato Puno and 11 other justices, the Court does not find any grave abuse of discretion on the part of Comelec in awarding the automation contract to the joint venture of private respondents.

The two justices who opposed the decision are Senior Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Conchita Carpio Morales.

The SC also labeled as “rehash” CCM’s arguments in its motion for reconsideration, saying the issues have already been resolved in the Court’s Sept. 10, 2009 decision. The Court added that Comelec “would accordingly need the help of all advocates of orderly and honest elections, all men and women of goodwill, to assist Comelec personnel in addressing the fears expressed about the integrity of the system.”

82,000 MACHINES READY
Shortly after SC’s decision, Smartmatic-TIM announced that it has finally manufactured the more than 82,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used in the May 10 elections. But this is more than three months late as planned earlier last year.

The Comelec said of the 82,000 machines that it will rent from Smartmatic-TIM, 75,471 will be delivered to precincts while the remaining 6,739 PCOS will be kept as spares or backups.

Smartmatic-TIM’s completion and delivery of the machines was originally set on October 2009 but the plant’s change of location from Taipei to Shanghai, and the high cost of holiday cargo shipments, stalled the delivery.

Comelec said that before sending the machines to polling precincts, it would work with Smartmatic-Tim to configure the equipment. Upon arrival, all machines will be stored in a warehouse in Laguna to undergo testings.

SOURCE CODE ISSUE
Meanwhile, on the source code issue, Comelec turned over the software’s master copy to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for safekeeping. This was done in accordance to Republic Act 9339, requiring Comelec to keep the master copy of the source code together with the BSP.

The provision mandates Comelec to make public the source code, sharing it to interested political parties or groups once an Automated Election System (AES) technology is selected for implementation.

Comelec said the source code was certified for P75 million by SysTest Labs, an international software testing company based in Colorado, USA. The latter brought the code to the Philippines on February 1 and turned it over to the Comelec on February 9.

The poll body selected SysTest Labs in October 2009 to review and certify the source code of the AES shortly after members of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (Cenpeg) filed a petition in the SC asking it to compel Comelec to reveal the source codes of the PCOS machines for public scrutiny.

Citing the poll automation law, Cenpeg said the source code is the human-readable version of the computer programs that will be running on the PCOS machines and on the computers of the board of canvassers on Election Day. It will reveal whether the voting and canvassing are done properly by the machines.

Comelec chairman Jose Melo said the source code will be kept in escrow with BSP for about a year, considering the country’s central bank as the “safest” place for the source code.

SECURE TRANSMISSION
Meanwhile, with all the noise created by the supposed arrival in the country of some 5,000 signal jammers, reportedly intended to spoil the automated polls – plans are being made for the creation of private wireless networks to be used for the secure and accurate transmission of election results.

The country’s telecommunications giants Globe Telecoms and PLDT/Smart declared that they are open to put up their very own Private Leased Line Network for Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM. If the plan pushes through, the task would only involve bandwidth rerouting or reconfiguration and would not require deployments of any physical infrastructure, reports said.

Globe said the task would entail the use of exclusive communication lines for voice and data using special SIMs for Smartmatic-TIM and Comelec without gong through the Internet. Armed with all the necessary encryptions and security protections, the private network is seen to deliver seamless and accurate transmission of election results.

All costs related to the private network’s use will be paid by Smartmatic-TIM, the telco firms said. Negotiations for the service are still taking place as of writing.

Reports say about 5,000 signal jammer devices were illegally shipped into the country and are capable of disrupting signals of cell phone sites. The reports prompted the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to issue a directive banning the use, sale, and importation of such devices.

However, according to Edgardo Cabarios, head of the common carriers division of NTC, the reports about the 5,000 signal jammers that were shipped in the Philippines have yet to be confirmed, noting NTC did not receive any request for the devices’ registration.

BEGINNINGS

Comelec’s attempt at modernizing or automating the electoral process began in 1992, immediately after the first Synchronized National and Local Elections (NLE). This was followed by the first pilot testing of an automated election system using the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology in the 1996 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Elections, then by the partial implementation in the ARMM provinces of the same automated system in the 1998 NLE.

However, its quest for a fully nationwide automated polls was halted in 2004 with its mega IT project scandal with Mega Pacific Consortium – declared void by the SC for the commission’s violation of its own bidding rules and procedure.

Comelec then came back with the successful pilot test of a fully automated election system in the 2008 ARMM Elections. For the coming 2010 elections, Comelec is nearing its goal of conducting the country’s first nationwide fully automated elections – from counting of votes to transmission and canvassing of election results.

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