By Tom S. Noda
Published in the CWP May 2010 issue

Eradication of the notorious election fraud known as “Dagdag-Bawas” (vote padding and vote shaving) is just one of the missions the Commission on Elections (Comelec) wants to achieve with an automated election system on May 10, a first in Philippine history.

The automated system also promises to improve the counting and canvassing of election results which with the manual system would normally take several months.

Comelec chairman Jose Melo describes the automated election system as a “highly efficient reporting mechanism” that democratizes the count and canvass of election results.

“We are finally moving away from the known flaws and weaknesses of the old ways of doing things and towards an automated election system that promises a speedy and accurate count,” Melo claims.

But many say the project was done in haste—rolled out in only 11 months, with Comelec granting the Php7.2 billion poll automation project contract to Smartmatic-TIM consortium just last July 10, 2009.

Melo defends Comelec by saying it is “100% on target” – claiming it will meet its deadline for the deliveries of the 82,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) voting machines, 50.7 million ballots, and 77,000 ballot boxes to be used in 76,300 precincts nationwide come election day. A total of 1,772 laptops shall be used in the canvassing of votes.

The ballot boxes to be used along with the PCOS would replace the traditional yellow metal boxes that public school teachers used to risk their lives guarding them in precincts. The new ones are taller and wider and are made of hard plastic.

“All canvassing centers [will] receive electronic election returns within minutes. And within hours from the close of polls, the electronic results would have propagated through all levels of canvassing and the winners for all positions have been proclaimed,” Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez told Computerworld Philippines, providing a view of a perfect and flawless automated election.

EXPECTATIONS

All organizations involved with the automation of elections, such as Comelec, Smartmatic- Total Information Management Corp. (TIM), and the Comelec Advisory Council (CAC), expect only some minor technical glitches on the big day.

“The worst case scenario would be if all the machines– and their back-ups – malfunctioned throughout election day,” says Jimenez, noting power outages could spell trouble.

According to Miguel Avila, demo and presentation coordinator of Smartmatic Corporation, a perfect scenario would be that all official municipal results are available in a few hours, and the new President of the country is known in 48 hours.

“We don’t expect a large number of machines not to work. If ever, there will only be small percentages based on the industry standard on hardware malfunction,” says Sec. Ray Roxas-Chua III, chairman of the Commission on ICT, and head of CAC. “We have backup machines, like 10% extra machines since we have 82,000 PCOS for 76,000 precincts.”

Chua clarifies that Comelec’s plan of 30% backup refers only to the manual election paraphernalia such as printed ERs and not in terms of the PCOS machines.

Avila explains that, based on technology alone, it is impossible to have a failure of elections.

“A worst-case scenario is that a failure of elections is declared in selected areas, due to reasons that cannot be controlled by automation or the procedures in place by Comelec,” Avila says, noting terrorism, intimidation, coercion, and vote-buying are problems that are endemic in any elections, but unfortunately cannot be addressed by technology.

However, Avila stresses “there would be no failure of elections caused by a machine breakdown because aside from the contingency plans and procedures, there would always be the ‘paper ballots’ and voters can continue voting even if the machine is unavailable.”

POLL INFRASTRUCTRE

Besides the PCOS machines, which will be installed in the precincts, there also the canvassing and consolidation computers – located in the city, municipal, and provincial canvassing centers. There is also the external modem – used by the PCOS to transmit election returns.

“Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) antennas will be used in case of failure of transmission via GPRS. Also, the VSAT or Very Small Aperture Terminal satellites will be used in case of failure of transmission via GPRS,” Jimenez says, adding the results will be generated by the Canvassing and Consolidation software.

Avila explains that upon closing of elections, each PCOS generates an Election Return (ER), after which the transmission process is initiated. “The PCOS sends the data securely to the servers such as the Municipal Canvassing Server, Comelec Back-up Server and KBP Server (shared with the dominant minority and majority parties and Citizen’s Arm).”

Avila continues that in the canvassing level, the operators (board of canvassers) monitor the incoming transmissions by refreshing the page. “Mathematical operations are not done manually by the board, as these are done automatically by the Canvassing Server,” says Avila.

Only last April 21, Smartmatic-TIM signed a memorandum of agreement with local telecommunication firms, Globe, PLDT Smart, and Digitel for the use of their virtual private wireless networks (VPNs) to transmit election results, starting from the voting centers to the canvassing centers up to the national canvassing centers. Comelec says the agreement is part of the Php7.2 billion poll automation contract awarded to Smartmatic-TIM.

The “source code” is the foundation of the PCOS’ programming and it is already part of the PCOS’ operating system. The only program that the PCOS runs is the Counting Program, which interprets the marks and counts the votes.

SECURITY ISSUES

Among the security measures applied for poll automation include the use of passwords, personal identification number (PIN), digital signatures, and encryption, among others.

To ensure the voting machines’ safety, Jimenez says all PCOS are stored in a secure facility where they are strictly guarded 24×7.

Avila shares a hash-code was generated to the machines’ source code, which can be used to verify that the software on the PCOS is indeed the one that was certified. This prevents tampering by any person, group or entity.

In securing the Central Canvassing System (CCS), Comelec split its administrator password among several people – chairman Melo, Sen. Francis Escudero and Congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr. – who each entered a six to eight character code which formed the highlevel password. In order to access the CCS, all three of them should be present to re-enter the code.

Chua says that in addition to the high-level password, the CCS also has an audit log, wherein anything performed by the machine will be logged and clocked. “If anyone attempts for any unauthorized activity, it will be recorded.”

As for the reported 5,000 signal jammers shipped into the country, Jimenez claims the devices do not pose major security threats because the results will be printed before the transmission is carried out. “Signal Jammers would merely delay transmission; they would not alter the results in any way,” he says.

VOTING AND TRASNSMISSION

As far as voting is concerned, a voter shades the ovals beside the names of their desired candidates and, once done, feeds the ballot into the PCOS machine.

Compared with past elections, the huge difference would be in the counting, canvassing and transmitting of results. Chua explains the machine will read marks, store it in the memory and shall be closed upon closing of the election day, where it will immediately begin its counting process and print election returns (8 copies) after completion of automated count. Then it shall perform an electronic transmission function (50k = 1 mms; in seconds) and print additional 22 copies of election returns (ER) to serve as evidence of transmitted data as well.

Consequently, the electronically transmitted results to a central server hosted by Globe will then be used as basis for canvassing/consolidation and proclamation of winning candidates for city, municipal officials; provincial officials, house of representatives, senators and party-list. Congress will also receive electronicallytransmitted results in accordance to the Constitution authorizing Congress to promulgate rules for canvassing of results for President and Vice-President.

“The one in the central server will continue to tabulate all the results but that won’t be the official one because the official results would have to go to the board of canvassers, the municipal, provincial board of canvassers and so on,” says Chua. “So while the Comelec is tabulating in their central server, it would also be made available on the real-time website whose URL will be launched a day before the elections.”

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