New York execs dump Smartmatic machines

During last April’s bidding for the election automation, Smartmatic admitted it was going to use voting machines of Dominion Co. of Canada. Rival bidders questioned this. Comelec rules specifically stated that the automation contractor must not be a mere sales agent, and may not sub-contract the manufacturing. But the complaints of Election Systems & Services (ES&S) and Sequoia Inc., America’s largest poll automation firms, fell on deaf ears. Smartmatic of Venezuela won, bragging that Dominion’s were in fact the machines of choice of New York state and city election commissioners. The two US makers were disqualified, along with three other bidders. So Smartmatic proceeded to fabricate the machines in Shanghai under mere license from Dominion.

Comelec commissioners should know what happened next. Actually, the two sets of New York officials reviewed their test-use of Dominion machines in the 2008 election. On January 5, the state execs announced that they were buying from ES&S they found problems with more than half of the machines supplied by Dominion. The next day, the city commissioners announced the same.

Comelec commissioners are thus forewarned about Smartmatic’s forthcoming 82,200 Dominion machines. They might encounter trouble like the New York officials. In fact, several of Smartmatic’s recent first deliveries malfunctioned on boot-up.

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NGOs, professional associations, academic   institutions   and interfaith groups have banded to monitor the poll automation. Under the Automated Election System (aesWatch2010), they drew up a checklist for the Comelec to make the country’s first automated balloting work. They call the 20 items the STAR (System Transparency, Accountability, Readiness) Score Card:

1. System components delivery. All hardware and software must be developed, customized, manufactured, delivered, configured and tested.

2. Production quality assurance. Quality assurance engineers adept in computer hardware must be deployed at the manufacturing plant.

3. Source code. The automation law requires disclosure of the source codes to political parties once Comelec selects the automation technology, which it did as of Oct. 10, 2009.

4. Verifiability of result. Votes must be properly counted. Municipal, provincial and national boards of canvassers must verify the authenticity of all election forms. Parties must be able to point out discrepancies.

5. Technology certification. An international certification entity must ascertain that hardware, software and other components are operable.

6. Secured transmission. Comelec must secure the electronic digital transmission of results at all levels.

7. Transmission facilities. These must be made public.

8. Set to zero. All machines must be cleared or “zeroed out” to ensure no entries or votes in the memory.

9. Deployment. To correctly deliver 82,200 machines to precincts, Comelec must set warehouse hubs, final delivery points, transport modes, and schedules.

10. Machine security. Comelec must secure the machines from delivery to retrieval against loss or tampering.

11. Precinct-specific ballots. These must contain the right names of candidates and delivered to the right precinct clusters.

12. IT-capable poll officers. Election inspectors and canvassers must be trained in info-tech.

13. Resource inventory. All precinct clusters must have telecom facilities and power supply.

14. General instructions. All must be finalized and issued on time.

15. Education and training. Comelec must employ all media to teach voters and poll watchers automated balloting.

16. Precinct assignment. Since the automation requires precinct clustering, majority of voters will have to go to new polling places, and so must be properly informed.

17. Manual audit. The automation law requires a manual audit of the automated count in one randomly chosen precinct per congressional district. This sample size must be increased to 15 percent of all precincts and covering all municipalities in the district.

18. Continuity plan. There must be contingencies in case of failure of election or automation.

19. Electoral protests. Even if automation eliminates cheating, there will still be protests. Comelec must identify grounds and measures for such protests.

20. Alternative systems. Since Comelec estimates that 30 percent of precincts might still go manual, it must state exactly which ones these are.

Among the members of aesWatch2010 are UP Alumni Association, CBCP-National Social Action Center, Ecumenical Bishops Forum, CenPEG, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, the De La Salle, Ateneo and UP computer science colleges, Philippine Computer Society, Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines, Computer Professionals Union, Solidarity Philippines, NUSP and Dilaab. It gave the STAR Score Card to Comelec last December 29. The poll body has yet to respond. –Jarius Bondoc (The Philippine Star)

aesWatch2010 can be contacted at the UP Alumni Association, Bahay Alumni, Magsaysay Ave., UP Diliman, Quezon City, tel. (02) 9206868 (Jenny); telefax (02) 9299526 (Fidel); fax (02) 9298327; E-mail: aeswatch.2010@gmail.com