Massive electoral fraud looms

There are just too many kinks needed to be ironed out if transparent, honest and orderly electronic voting, as being pushed by both the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic-TIM, is to come about.

It is, however, fairly evident that there are much too many loopholes to ensure that automated polls will neither be transparent nor honest but also much too disorderly, all of which points to a massive failure of elections, not to mention massive electoral fraud.

On the part of the Comelec, its officials quickly dismiss any possible occurrence of massive failure of elections, saying that at most, only a few machines would fail, therefore, the scenario of massive poll failure is unlikely.

Yet is it not just a question of machines malfunctioning on election day but massive disenfranchisement of voters, and equally important, massive electoral fraud.

Massive disenfranchisement, as well as massive electoral fraud constitute a failure of elections, since the polls are not meant to thwart the electorate’s sovereign will. The nation certainly cannot afford to have yet another bogus leader in Malacañang. Democracy will have become a mockery.

And we will always have a bogus president, if Comelec does not do its part to plug all the loopholes to ensure clean polls, manual or automated.

Take the purging of the voters’ list which has not quite been purged of ghost and flying voters as well as the underaged and unqualified voters. Comelec claims it has purged from the list close to 6 million voters.

Just that number of 6 million voters alone purged thus far already points to the fact that too many of our elected officials may not have been elected by the people, but elected through fraud. Six million unqualified voters voting in the previous elections already change dramatically the fate of the real winners and the losers who make it anyway, in any national position.

And even with 6 million voters purged from the list, this is still no guarantee that the list no longer contains these ghost voters, double registrants, the dead and the underaged and ineligible voters. There would still be more of them in the 2010 polls.

But even more important is the fact that the poll body has ignored all the safeguards to foil massive electoral fraud, and all because the Comelec wants to rush automated polls, as dictated by its chosen partner, Smartmatic-TIM.

As stated in yesterday’s Tribune report, the long delay in Comelec’s release of the source code, as provided in the contract, will be delayed much longer, so much so that by the time the interested groups get the source code, everything will have been too late for them to check this out.

But the delay is apparently intentional, since Smartmatic-TIM can’t produce a source code from its licenser.

It was discovered that Smartmatic’s binary license of Dominion Systems of Canada’s programs prevents a source code review. As explained by IT experts, “the precinct count optical scan computer hardware and software/firmware are owned by Dominion. Although Smartmatic licensed this technology from Dominion for a period of five years, ‘with the right to sub-license the right to use such software to the Comelec,’ Dominion retains sole liability to amend, change or develop all software or firmware of EMS.”

Then there is too, the danger of Comelec giving Smartmatic full rein on generating and giving out the private public keys, which translates to Smartmatic having full control of the private keys which gives out the Smartmatic-generated passwords to be given to the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs). But since it is Smartmatic that controls the passwords, it can change the passwords, and naturally, access the data via remote, which can also be done by anyone in the Palace who has been given the password.

The fact is, this has already happened in Wao during the automated ARMM elections and brought to the attention of the Comelec officials, yet they did nothing about it, just as they are not doing anything about it today.

But an even more important safeguard is being deliberately ignored since the whole poll automation process does not have any internationally accredited electronic signature verifier, which the law and rules in the E-Commerce law demand.

And in the absence of an accredited signature verifier, it will again be Smartmatic that will be be verifying the password and the electronic signatories.

With Smartmatic generating the private and public keys of all BEIs and BoC personnel, Smartmatic can make changes in the precinct election returns without anyone knowing about it.

Without a signature verifier, everything will be under the control of Smartmatic, with no safeguards present. Expect massive fraud in 2010. –Daily Tribune