By Ivan Uy
A Joint Venture Between Computerworld Philippines and TeamAsia

Preparations for the first-ever nationwide automated elections have been ongoing for the past year and, hopefully, we will be on-track, despite several events that have contributed to delaying this mega-project. Hopefully, the calamities brought on by the recent typhoons serve as a warning to our electoral officials and other stakeholders not to take things for granted. The preparations should seriously take into consideration all factors including, of course, business continuity planning. Unfortunately, for many high ranking government officials, they simply consider automation similar to buying a TV set and just plugging it into an outlet. For the 2010 automated elections, we are using a technology called Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) which uses electronic technology to tabulate paper ballots. We have approximately 47 million registered voters scattered in about 320,000 precincts. Each precinct has, at most, 200 voters. In order to maximize the benefit and cost of each PCOS machine, one will be assigned to each clustered precinct of at most five precincts. Obviously, some clusters will have less than five precincts since some remote areas may have less than 1,000 population. Thus, a single machine will be handling a maximum of 1,000 ballots. Comelec estimates the clustered precincts to number 80,136 hence the purchase of about 82,200 PCOS machines. Each clustered precinct will have a Board of Election Inspectors comprising three regular members and as many support staff as there are precincts in the cluster.

A few days before Election Day, there will be a testing and sealing procedure whereby the public will accomplish test ballots, manually count them and then feed the same ballots to the PCOS machines. The print-out of the election returns will be compared to the manual count. Once the public is satisfied with the accuracy, the machine will be turned off and sealed without any network or transmission connection. The public will then be allowed to secure the machines and the polling places. The next time the PCOS machines will be opened will be on Election Day, in the presence of the different watchers and BEI.

At the start of Election Day, the BEI, in the presence of the public, shall turn on the PCOS machines which shall print a “zero report” to show that there are no pre-existing votes/ballots in the machine. The ballot box, likewise, will be made of semi-transparent plastic which can clearly show that it is empty but at the same time make the ballots cast unreadable to protect its secrecy. The voters can now proceed to obtain his ballot from the Comelec officer who will verify his identity. Most likely, the list of voters will contain the photo of the voter, for those who already had their data captured in the computerized registration. After filling in the ballots by shading the appropriate oval, the voter will cast the ballot by feeding it to the PCOS machine. The ballot is scanned by the PCOS machine on both sides simultaneously and a scanned image of the ballot is taken by the machine and stored in it memory module. The machine will likewise store a report on how it interpreted the ballot image that was recently scanned. This will be helpful in an eventual audit or manual recount. In case of power failure, the machines are certified to operate on back-up power for at least 12 hours. At the end of Election Day, the BEI will seal and shut down the PCOS machine and will print 8 copies of the election returns. Thereafter, the PCOS will electronically transmit the electronic election return to several servers, namely the Comelec server, municipal server, and the servers for election watchdogs. The electronic transmission, which will take only a few seconds or minutes, will use redundant transmission facilities whether via cable, wireless or satellite technology.

Additionally, it will be secured and encrypted using the same standards as what the banks use for wiring money. Hopefully, we will know the results within 48 hours. By the way, Comelec will also be posting the results of the transmission on-line. Thus, the general public may view the results from each precinct or district or province as they come in.

By now, the Comelec should have addressed continuity plans in case of power failure, transmission unavailability or delay, PCOS malfunction, misdelivery or mismatch of ballots and machines, BEI personnel not showing up on Election Day, Denial of Service attacks, hacking, etc. If all things go well, and the cheaters are finally thwarted of their cheating machineries, it will truly be a shining moment for our democracy.

See you at the polls!

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