THE National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections on Friday urged the Commission on Elections to issue guidelines to its election inspectors and watchers as to what steps they should take in case automation fails in their precincts on election day.
“It is dangerous for the Comelec to assume it can achieve 100 percent automated elections and not prepare for manual elections just incase the system breaks down in some or all precincts,” it said as it expressed growing concerns about the country’s preparedness for its first ever automated elections in May.
Namfrel also questioned whether the Commission on Elections would meet its deadline to ensure the success of the elections.
“From the very beginning questions were raised when the contract for the Automated Election System (AES) was awarded to Smartmatic-Total Information Management. We have seen Comelec extend tremendous leniency to Smartmatic not only in terms of front loaded payments and fees but accommodating major changes to the contract that sometimes cross the boundaries of what is legal,” it said.
The citizens’ group noted that Comelec has not been enforcing deadlines and has not attained the required levels of accuracy in its pilot tests.
Namfrel said the Technical Evaluation Committee Assessment should have been delivered on Feb. 10 but was re-scheduled to March 10 in defiance of the law that stipulates the assessment should be conducted three months prior to election day.
It also said the TEC report to be submitted to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) must be explicit on its recommendations to proceed or not with the AES. “So far there has been no indication if this has been complied with,” Namfrel said.
Namfrel also expressed concern over the:
• Source code review: Namfrel said the review of the source has been conducted improperly or not at all, breaching the safeguard for ensuring the integrity of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS). Political parties, election-related civil society organizations and professional organizations have declined to participate in the review as a result, it said.
• Preparation for random manual audit: The Comelec has not issued general instructions on the random manual audit required by law which, Namfrel said, would be the last line of defense to assure the integrity of the AES.
• Cleansing the voters list: Namfrel said attempts to clean up the voters list of multiple or spurious registered voters have been sproadic despite a separate budget allocated for the automated voters registration of the Comelec which covered an estimated 50 percent of registered voters through the automated finger-print identification system (AFIS).
March 26 is the deadline when the book of voters will be closed and finalized through Comelecs’ election registration board (ERB) hearings. “As an added deterrent the watchdogs and concerned public should be given access and copies of the certified voters list and the project of precincts immediately allowing them to pose a challenge to suspected illegal voters,” according to Namfrel.
• Transmission: Comelec and Smartmatic will use the GPRS/CMTS infrastructure for transmission in 75 percent of the country while the remaining 25 percent will use the BGAN, VSAT, and DSL capability of telcos. Comelec has said contracts have been drawn up and signed by Smartmatic with various telcos to provide the required transmission connectivity service. But Namfrel said: “With the possibility of transmission failure, the Comelec has to firm up its automated and manual contingency plans to cope with this scenario.”
• Server availability and transparency: Four servers for each of the authorized recipients (two political parties, one citizens group and one media) had initially been set aside. Namfrel noted, however, that this has been amended to just one shared server, in the process curtailing open access to the results and rendering the verification of the various elections returns transmitted through the political parties, KBP, and the citizens arm irrelevant.
Namfrel said the voter verifiable paper audit trail and the on-screen verification—two features required in the original request for proposal—ewre earlier eliminated and the PCOS machines’ capability to process these two features disabled. “This clearly reflects the bias of Comelec-Smartmatic on speed expediency over transparency and auditability,” it said.
• Congestion and queuing problems: An expected congestion problem in voting centers due to precinct clustering is expected to provide a window of opportunity for cheating. Namfreal lauded Comelec’s issuance of Resolution 8786 to create Voting Assistance Centers (VACs) as “a step in the right direction.”
• Ballot printing: Namfrel expressed concern over reports of a Comelec director expressing alarm over the breakdown of printers which could derail the on-time completion of printing 50.8 million ballots by April 25. The director recommended the additional purchase of two more digital printers and the printing of 15 million ballots to be used for a manual set-up to meet such a contingency. It was later learned that the printing of 15 million manual ballots was scrapped. So far 13 million out of the 50.8 million ballots have been printed. The three existing printer only have a capacity of 400,000 to 650,000 each well below the output required to meet the April 25 cut-off to fulfill the ballot delivery schedule.
• Deployment of machines: “With the geography of the Philippines the way it is, the capability of the three winning courier firms leaves much to be desired for them to undertake the delivery and deployment task in which none of them have had any experience,” Namfrel said.