Assignment #3

Automated Elections?.. First that came into my mind the moment I heard of it was “Wow!..Sosyal!..Pagxure lang ana..”. Techie as you might imagine. ‘Cool!’, you can even say that but is that what we really need nowadays?.. In this time?.. Repression in the United States and years long of economic crisis here in the Philippines.. Is automated elections practical?.. I have few points why I oppose this. First, it is really not practical this time?. Second, does it really assure clean and honest election?. I have points too why I approve this. First, if not now, when?. Second, it would be incredibly fast than the manual one. Sounds confusing right?.. Where do I really stand?..

Actually, there are many pros and cons regarding this matter. The ones I stated above are included there. I could not say that I really oppose neither approve it. Today, we Filipinos are still facing economic crisis. Billions of pesos would be spent on those machines. But come to think of it, those billions of pesos if we would put it into something more reasonable could cause uplifting from the poverty line of our fellow Filipinos. I think that it is not the time to launch such.

Some say that it would really welcome fraud to be done and some said it is difficult now to cheat. I have read an article in a newspaper, the Daily Inquirer stating the cons about the said automation and the rebuttals of the COMELEC about it.

“Because of the automation of elections tallying would not be visible among people except those score sheets produced by the machines. Whether the votes where counted accurately, we will not know. Fraud can take place and the voters and watchers at the precinct will not know if fraud has taken place. COMELEC claims that the said system could not be hacked and its source code would be open to computer experts for inspection. Yes, it could not be hacked but are we assured that there will be no inside job?, that the cheating would not be made by those who know the means and ways of the system?. Looking at the source code is practically useless. OMR machines are used in schools for scoring tests and in survey companies for tabulating survey results. Members of the administrative staff in schools and survey companies do not change the source code. They provide a scoring or tabulating table to modify how the OMR machine scores a test or tabulates a survey. By changing this table, fraud is easily committed. In order to cheat on the OMR counting machines, all that is needed is to download a new counting table that changes for whom a shaded circle is counted. In areas where the candidates that want to cheat are weak, the table can be modified so that votes will be switched. At the end of counting, the original table can be reloaded so that any tests would indicate that the machines are counting correctly and honestly. It could also be possible for someone that seems to be authorized to quickly insert a USB memory stick that would load the fraudulent table. One could change the statement of votes of some municipalities. These changes would be reflected on the provincial COC.

In order to prevent automated election fraud, certain safeguards have to be instituted. These include:

1. The OMR machines should not have any network connection. The election results should be copied to USB memory sticks, which can subsequently be loaded to a separate PC that will transmit the results to the Comelec canvassing system at the municipality and to the dominant majority and minority parties, as well as to the citizens arms such as PPCRV and Namfrel.

2. The above parties should be provided with their own PCs to be able to produce their own COCs. If the Comelec COC does not match the COCs produced by other parties, a careful review should be done prior to transmission to the provincial level.

3. The verified municipal COC should then be transmitted to the multiple groups defined above. Again, the Comelec COC should be compared with the other COCs and the reason for discrepancies should be determined.

4. The verified Provincial COC should again be transmitted to multiple parties.

The Comelec and Congressional Canvass should again be compared to the parallel canvasses to assure that fraud is minimized as much as possible.

5. Each of the concerned groups should make their results available on their websites for the public to access.

If these proposed measures are followed, there will be true transparency and automated fraud will be minimized.

”

Yes, there could be many flaws in using the AES (Automated Election System). But is also have pros. And also, it could be prevented as what has been stated above. One pro of the said election is that it could provide us fast and hassle free election. The big sum of money is just for the initial or for the launching of the said project according to my dad and he also said that in the long run the expenses would eventually decrease and be lower that the expense of the manual election. Another thing is that if not now, when? if the technology’s price have really have sky rocketed?

Well, actually I’m confused on where to stand. I just laid some facts regarding the pros and cons of both stand. I myself don’t oppose the launching or the usage of the automated system in the coming 2010 elections. As an IT student, I really know what great benefits automation brings. Instructors have lectured it since I was in first year. It is really nice that it would be pursued but I would really like to recommend that the UP students’ team would have the honors to program the said system rather that who won the bidding for I think that the government could minimize the expenses if they were to choose the bright and young UP students’ team.

-Reference

Automated election fraud

By Manuel A. Alcuaz Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer