By Ivan Uy
Computerworld Philippine
May 1, 2010

The country is about to embark on its first nationwide automated elections. This activity has reaped praises and encouragement from its advocates. It has likewise generated an equal amount of attacks and expressions of grave concern if not outright damnation from its critics. The whole scope ranges from optimists looking at it as the ultimate solution to deal with the well established cheating machineries in past elections on one hand to doomsday scenarios where a failure of elections is an imminent nightmare for the pessimists on the other.

We see around us the risks and dangers created by the political climate and its players.

* The contentious issue of who can legitimately appoint the next chief justice,

* The restless upperclassmen of batch 76 and 77 of the Philippine Military Academy who have recently been bypassed by its junior class of 78 ( the adopted batch of the hopefully outgoing president) all of whom are already generals in the various armed services,

* The realignment of loyalties among the various members of the political parties, swaying in rhythm with the surveys

* The last minute removals and reassignments of police and military commanders assigned to “bantay” or “salakay” the elections in their respective areas of command,

* The midnight appointments of various government officials and the eleventh hour removal of various elective officials identified with the opposition,

* The increasing frequency of power outages all over the country.

We see the risks and dangers created by the last minute adjustments that COMELEC and Smartmatic are doing, such as:

* The deactivation of the ultra violet light detector on the PCOS machines which would distinguish genuine ballots from fake ballots and instead merely relying on the bar codes,

* The elimination of the personbased digital signatures of the Board of Election Inspectors that would encrypt the data before transmission and instead just limiting it to the machine-based digital signatures on the PCOS machines,

* The late issuance of General Instructions for the BEI, contingency plans, and the Board of Canvassers,

* The photo finish schedule of printing of the ballots,

* the seeming inadequacy of the training for the teachers and members of the BEI and the BOC.

* The uncertainty of the capability of the logistic companies contracted by both Comelec and Smartmatic to timely and accurately deliver the right ballots to the right machines,

* The downgrading by the Telcos to second class data centers for the hosting of the election servers (they almost abandoned it and Chairman Melo had to even threaten them with take over of their facilities by the armed forces),

* The absence or lack of rules of all the electoral tribunals on how to appreciate all the electronic and digital evidence relative to disputes in a technology-based elections,

* Congress has not even come up with its own rules on how to conduct the canvass for the President and Vice President, given that the Certificates of Canvass are going to be electronically transmitted to Congress.

* The uncertainty on how the random manual audit is going to be done, whether prior to or after proclamation.

* The controversy on the source code review of the software that would ultimately run the automated counting and canvassing.

We likewise see that despite these dangers and risks, technology does provide answers to many of these threats.

* Encryption and digital signatures, if used properly can indeed ensure authenticity and reliability of information and data transmission.

* Speed in transmitting electronic results can significantly reduce or eliminate ballot switching or snatching or stuffing. It can likewise obviate the notorious “dagdag bawas”

* The presence of photos and thumb marks on the voters list, in addition to the (most of the time) indelible inks can reduce flying voters.

* Having multiple transmission of the same data to multiple parties can lessen fraud or intentional manipulation of results by any party since it can be validated by all the other recipients.

* Hashing would indeed provide parties with the capability to detect any alterations on the original software. (Hashing is putting the software or file thru an algorithm and producing an alphanumeric value. This value will change if there is any alteration on the software or file). But this presupposes that the parties had indeed ensured that the original software that was hashed and put in escrow with the Bangko Sentral is not a bastardized version from the very beginning.

* The audit log which records every action taken on or by the machines can serve as a deterrent to would-be cheaters that their activities will not go undetected.

Ultimately, vigilance by the citizenry is still the key to this whole exercise. This could be a wonderful opportunity to once more show the world, in the same manner we did at EDSA in 1986, that we Filipinos can and will prevail, despite all adversities, despite all odds, despite the seeming impossibility of success. Human dignity and the decency in many of us will still overcome the “dark side.” Heaven knows how desperately we need moral, just and competent leaders.

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