Comelec destroying flash card ‘evidence’

CenPEG: Poll body has no right to tamper with proof for audit purposes

What should be part of the body of evidence in an audit, such as Smartmatic’s faulty compact flash cards, has now been tampered with by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) through its destruction of these flash cards.

The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) yesterday called on the Comelec to stop destroying the controversial compact flash (CF) cards that malfunctioned during the May 3 final testing and sealing (FTS) procedure done in many voting areas in the country.

Speaking through IT consultant Lito Averia, CenPEG said “the destruction of the remaining CF cards should be stopped and a review of their contents be done by an independent group of experts to determine the cause of the May 3 FTS errors.”

The destruction of the CF cards was revealed by Comelec spokesman James Jimenez in a TV phoned-in interview last May 13.

It was at about the same time that presidential candidates have bared the many instances of probable electronic fraud that may have been committed during the May 10 polls.

Jimenez was quoted as saying that the Comelec fears the CF cards might fall into the wrong hands, a reason found inexcusable by various groups.

Following the May 3 failed FTS exercises, the Comelec issued a recall of all CF cards for reconfiguration. But there followed reports that election results were transmitted from some de-commissioned CF cards on election day or thereafter.

Bobby Tuazon, CenPEG director for policy studies, said “Comelec just doesn’t have the right to destroy valuable items (CFCs) needed for auditing and examination of the poll automation conduct by their representatives, independent poll watch dogs, and other advocacy groups.”

The poll body “cannot just tamper with legal procedures and evidence needed to audit the automated election system (AES) and as evidence when election protests are filed.

“The country’s millions of voters have a high stake in the election and want the process to be fair, transparent, and judicious,” Tuazon added.

It will be recalled that two days before the scheduled elections, the SC ordered the Comelec to open for public scrutiny, all the flash cards, as well as the source code and all the contingency plans prepared by Comelec, saying that the poll body must make everything transparent.

This was never done by the Comelec.

Averia, an IT security expert, cautioned the poll body into safeguarding the CF cards to resolve issues. The rules of chain of custody should be issued by the Comelec immediately, he stressed.

“Comelec should now come up with procedural controls to avoid the same errors from recurring should the same AES technology be used for future elections,” said Averia.

CenPEG believes that by destroying the CF cards, Comelec will be demolishing a fundamental body of evidence that will shed light on many anomalies surrounding the flawed AES implemented on May 10.

Sec. 27 of Republic Act 9369 (Amended AES Law) provides for a review and assessment of the AES technology used, but this review will be imperiled by the destruction of the CF cards among other Comelec election paraphernalia, said Averia.

Noting the number of electoral complaints reported, Comelec now has to assure the public there are no programs that are designed to cheat or manipulate the vote counts, stressed Averia.

Preserving the CF cards would also dispel reports that election results generated during the final sealing and testing activities prior to the polls on May 10, 2010 were transmitted following the close of the May 10 polls, instead of the official election reports of the actual polls.

Averia said preserving the CF cards would also resolve claims of many candidates that the election returns generated on May 10 were faulty and spurious.

He also cautioned against implementing Comelec Resolution No. 8914, in which the Comelec en banc ordered the CCS laptops from which the FTS reports were transmitted be brought to Manila for the Comelec to rectify the errors. The said FTS reports are to be deleted.

The deletion of the said FTS reports should be stopped and the CCS laptops be reviewed by an independent group of experts to determine why the FTS reports were retained in the CCS laptop storage.

Preserving the FTS is also a way to assure the public and interested political parties and groups that the FTS reports were indeed not meant to be transmitted.

But the Comelec spokesman claimed that it is impossible for people to manipulate any results of the recently concluded polls since the system has been transparent.

“There will be no special operations in this election since the system is very transparent. In fact, even the smallest errors have been immediately recognized. If there are moves to subvert the system, I think they should be very careful not to be caught otherwise their efforts are futile, Jimenez said.

Meanwhile, with glitches still abounding five days after polling day, Comelec gave the public the assurance that there would be no more glitches in the transmission of data from various precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines in its servers at the Pope Pius Center in Manila where its accredited citizen arm Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) has been coming up with its own electronic vote tally.

It was only yesterday that Smartmatic-Asia president, Cesar Flores, along with an IT Comelec consultant went to the PPCRV headquarters to repair the glitch in the PPCRV server, which is being claimed to be the cause of the delays in the tally being conducted.

In resolving the glitch, Flores and the IT expert said they will be expanding the storage capacity of the data files.

In a related development, the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said that the just concluded electoral exercise was a success.

Namfrel chairman Jose Cuisia Jr. said the election was generally clean. Some 75 percent of the more than 50 million voters participated last Monday

“On the whole, the new process of voting in an automated election system worked better than most people’s expectations,” the group, in a statement said.

They admitted they were also surprised that the process went on smoothly despite technical glitches and procedural problems.

Earlier, Namfrel warned that the computerized balloting could fail.

With this, the group lauded the efforts of the voters, the Board of Election Inspectors, and the Comelec for coming up with a successful automated process of elections.

The group also cited the fast counting and transmission of results that allowed the nation to know the winning candidates for president, vice-president, and senators a day after the poll precincts closed.

Namfrel also pointed out that manner the losing presidential candidate conceded quickly to the leading candidate lessened the political tension in the country, which it said was one of the benefits of the automated counting.

For his part, Guillermo Luz, Namfrel’s board member asked the Comelec to look into several issues that arose during the May 10 polls.

Among them are: the clustered precinct system, and the slow down in the canvassing, and complete review of the automated election system.

They noted that the compact flash cards that were replaced should not be destroyed and should be audited too.

Namfrel also urged the poll body to immediately release the results of the random manual audit since it would help identify the potential problems in the system.

Losing presidential candidate Sen. Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal said Nacionalista Party presidential bet Sen. Manny Villar was cheated during the elections.

Despite waging a negative campaign against Senator Villar and leading a Senate inquiry over his alleged scams, Madrigal does not believe that her most hated presidential candidate, Senator Villar, is that far behind Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino in the Comelec and PPCRV tallies.

Madrigal, in a TV interview said she thinks Villar’s votes may have been shaved.

The senator has joined other tail enders, Ang Kapatiran’s John Carlos “JC” de los Reyes and environmentalist Nicanor Perlas, in questioning the results of the elections.

The three are even trailing a disqualified candidate of the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), Vetallano Acosta, based on the tallies of the Comelec and PPCRV.

They expressed disbelief that Acosta would get more votes than them.

The three presidential bets said that with “evidence from the ground,” they will file petitions before the Comelec and ask for proof that the May 10 automated elections was clean and credible.

De los Reyes, for his part, said Ang Kapatiran Party noticed that alleged cheating in this year’s election was done by “shaving off votes in small places.”

The three presidential candidates said that they are raising the possibility of electronic cheating, not because they were expecting to win against the big wigs.

They said they are fighting for the people’s vote and for the next automated elections.

–Marie A. Surbano with Jason Faustino, Daily Tribume