The Philippine Online Chronicles

The preparations of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the May elections have been characterized by several delays, raising doubts on a 100-percent automation.

A few months back during a Joint Congressional Oversight Committee hearing, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento guaranteed a 100-percent, fully automated election throughout the country.

But come January, Comelec Chairman Jose Melo himself expressed doubts that the government would be able to pull off a fully automated elections. In worst case scenario, Melo said, we would resort to manual elections.

The poll body attributed the delays in the preparations for the automated elections system (AES) to several reasons, mainly technical and legal issues that have confronted them since they started automating the voting process.

Delayed deliveries

One crucial factor delaying the entire election schedule is the late delivery of Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines. In the original proposal, the delivery should have started last October 1 and completed by December 30, 2009.

However, Comelec adjusted the election schedule and move the delivery dates several times, an apparent accommodation to Smartmatic-TIM.

At the end of the year though, only 7,200 units were delivered. As of early February, only 24,000 have arrived, according to Comelec. Each of these machines will be tested.

Based on the contract, Smartmatic-TIM must pay P7.5-million fine for every single day it misses the deadline but Comelec has not penalized the contractor.

As early as November 2009 though, a Comelec official admitted that preparations lag behind by a month. A Gmanews.tv report quoted Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal as saying that the delay is in the survey of polling precincts and delivery of PCOS machines.

Larrazabal blamed the delay on the case filed by the Concerned Citizens’ Movement (CCM) with the Supreme Court seeking to void the P7.2-million poll automation contract between the Comelec and Smartmatic/TIM.

He said that if it had not been for the legal case, they would have been able to start with the site surveys sooner. He also blamed the deadly cyclones that ravaged the country.

Extension of registration

Comelec said the extension of voter’s registration has delayed poll automation preparations further to three to four weeks. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said because of the extension, they had to approve the voters list and distribute it to different precincts again.

Meanwhile, the printing of official ballots, which was originally set last January 8, has been moved to January 25 and later to February 7. The poll body said that pending disqualification cases filed against local and national candidates and appeals from partylist groups are delaying the printing.

But based on information from the National Printing Office (NPO), as of February 7, the printing of official ballots hasn’t started yet. Technical problems are reportedly causing the delay. Comelec said the delays won’t affect the delivery of ballots to precints.

Teachers' training

The Comelec has also decided to delay the training of public teachers for the 2010 automated elections to March 1 - two months before the elections.

It said earlier that it is planning to tap around 245,000 teachers to sit as board of elections inspectors (BEIs) in the May polls, with each clustered precinct having at least three BEIs

Comelec legal chief Ferdinand Rafanan said there is no rush in the teachers' training since the time that teachers would be spending on the machine come election day would be minimal. He said the teachers only need to learn how to input a two-password security key into the PCOS machines.

But Comelec’s weakness “especially in providing the teachers with voters’ education and basic knowledge regarding poll automation is already causing panic among the teachers and the voting public in general,” said Prof. Myfel Paluga, regional coordinator of ACT Teachers’ Party.

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Field tests

Ateneo de Manila University IT professor Pablo Manalastas of Automated Election Watch, or AES Watch, an independent citizens’ group composed of academics, IT professionals and other experts , said that as of Jan. 9, Smartmatic-TIM had delivered less than 20 percent of the machines which “still need to be configured, tested and certified.”

The Comelec started its field tests but a report by the Vera Files revealed that such tests were marked by trial and error such as those held in Taguig and Pateros. The test included the scanning of ballots by the PCOS machines and the transmission of election results to the municipal canvassers and the Comelec’s central server.

Last January 29 at Aguho Elementary School in Pateros, the PCOS machine failed several times to transmit the election reports using its modem which had Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards from telecommunication networks Smart, Globe, and Sun.

Only after three hours of trying that PCOS technicians were able to transmit the election reports. In the absence of any signal from the three networks, PCOS technicians used the Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) also known as international marine satellites or inmarsat. The BGAN is a device that connects to a satellite network to transmit data, but this too was not easy. PCOS technician Mark Oliver Vergara had to bring the BGAN machine outside the classroom to get a signal.

Observers also noted that significant glitches marked the initial waves of field tests. “There were many defects in the machines and there were lapses in the system. The Comelec and Smartmatic people seemed ill-prepared to cope with the problems. With 100 days left till election day, we are concerned that there may not be enough time to address these crucial problems,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. who observed the field test in Pateros.

He also noted that the PCOS machine during the test failed to read four out of 10 valid ballots.

“Problems during field tests are understandable. What is alarming is that there seems to be very little time to fix these problems. Even more alarming is the attitude displayed by Comelec and Smartmatic that everything is on track. No real contingencies have been put in place,” Reyes said.

The Comelec though considers it a success that data was still transferred.

Bayan also proposed that Comelec also test the batteries that will go along with the machines in the event of power failures.

Comelec officials said they would need some 300 technicians working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to be able to test all the machines in less than two months, or within 45 days. However, Comelec also admitted before the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee hearing last February 2 that it has yet to hire all 300 technicians.

Still not ready

The AES Watch had given the Comelec a rating of ‘danger’ on the agency’s preparedness and trustworthiness to conduct the country’s first automated elections in May.

“Overall the ratings revealed the Comelec is in the danger zone in its preparations for the May 10 automated elections,” the AES Watch said.

“Less than four months before the elections, the Comelec has not shown us a convincing case it is ready to conduct trustworthy automated elections,” said Alfredo Pascual, University of the Philippines Alumni Association president and a member of the AES Watch, the group that conducted the review.

He said their review of the preparatory stage of the polls revealed “several technical vulnerabilities” that put in question the reliability of the election results. Pascual noted the Comelec had to push back its timetable six times.

“By this time it appears that the Comelec is being confronted by insurmountable challenges especially with regard to the AES implementation. If the pattern of delays continues, the trustworthiness of the election system is put to greater risk and vulnerability. This may result not only in resource wastage but will also undermine the whole electoral process thus affecting its credibility, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) said in a statement.

CenPEG asserts that the Comelec, as the country’s premier election manager, should be held accountable, and that corrective measures must be quickly undertaken to avoid the pitfalls of automation.

Indeed, “there are many loopholes in the Comelec’s preparations,” according to Senator Chiz Escudero, and as he said, “we can only hope for the best and expect the worst in the implementation of the poll automation.”

Photo: ‘PCOS Machine’ from comelec.gov.ph. Some rights reserved.