An assessment of the 2010 elections

The Manila Times today begins to serialize Mr. Monsod’s assessment of the May 2010 automated polls, which was delivered on November 9, 2010, at the Ateneo de Manila Rockwell campus in Rockwell, Makati City, as a lecture, under the Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation Lecture Series.

First of six parts

I am honored by the invitation of the Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation to make an assessment of the 2010 elections, which also happens to be the first automated elections in our country.

Thank you, especially to Maribel, who is a comrade on electoral reform from way back when we were young. My talk today will consist of four parts:

+The elections – predicted and actual. The people have spoken and it is a step forward for our democracy.
+ But legitimate questions need answers, particularly the auditability of the system.
+Beyond reforming the voting system, are the serious governance issues which call for urgent attention and reforms.
+And the most important question – Where do we go from here?

The Elections – Prediction

Before May 10, 2010, this was how I viewed the coming elections:

1. The scenario of a vast and elaborate conspiracy to make the elections fail so that President Gloria Arroyo can stay forever did not make sense. In the first place, the Comelec (Commission on Elections) would not agree to be a part of it (nor for that matter to a plan to manipulate the results); neither would the military, the Senate or the Supreme Court. Secondly, it defied logic for President Arroyo to take on such a high risk proposition to the stability of the country, and to herself when she had already protected herself by the appointment of her people in high places and her being in the Congress;
2. The people wanted the elections to take place, the automation to work and the peaceful transfer of power to happen on June 30, 2010. And when the call of the people is strong and clear, statesmanship or self-interest, enlightened or otherwise, inform the behavior of our leaders, and the many decent people in government;
3. Despite the lack of transparency of the Comelec, there was basis for assuming that the source code and PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan) machines were clean and therefore a good chance that the elections would be sufficiently successful with most of the results credible, provided that the 30 compensatory controls recommended by the Technical Advisory Committee were installed and implemented with the following additional safeguards:

a. a random test of the PCOS machine using an extraction key to generate the code for comparison with that deposited in the Central Bank;
b. the printing of the first eight copies of the ER (electoral returns) before the PCOS modem is plugged in;
c. online posting of the results on the Comelec website; and
d. an enhanced and efficient implementation of the random manual audit.
4. Even without automated fraud, the elections would be attended by many problems.
But a massive failure of technology or of logistics or of non-acceptability of the results was unlikely.
5. The elections was not about President Arroyo, it was about us and our country’s ability to carry out this project, despite the odds.

Elections – Actual

We all know how the elections turned out. It was a step forward for our democracy and a cause of celebration for the country. There was no failure of elections, no catastrophic failure of technology or logistics, no outrage over its conduct or results.

President Benigno Aquino 3rd won by the largest margin in history, which was accurately tracked by the surveys and exit polls. As accurately tracked were the vice presidential and senatorial elections. And there was a peaceful transfer of power on June 30, 2010.

I do not think anybody seriously disagrees with the results of the six SWS (Social Weather Stations) surveys from February to late June 2010 on the favorable sentiments of most voters about automation—the believability of the results, the ease of ballot shading, the speed of the counting, the early proclamation of winners. The sentiment is even more sanguine among poll workers. The shock and awe approach of the Comelec paid off and caught the cheaters off balance.

A book entitled Philippine Democracy Assessment (a joint project of the British Council, Fredrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Philippine Democracy Audit and Transparency and Accountability Network) tells us that it is more meaningful to go beyond measuring the “success” of a democracy to a measurement of its quality depending not on “expert common sense,” which is usually critical of and cynical of democracies, but more on “people common sense,” which is more optimistic and supportive of democracy. It suggests that changing the everyday practices and assumptions of citizens may have greater impact on the institutional edifices of the Philippine government and state than more formal means, such as Charter change.

I agree with the “people common sense” approach, because it is more important to listen to what the citizens themselves are saying about our democracy, or what James Surowiecki aptly describes in his book as the unerring “wisdom of crowds,” because it articulates the fundamental principle of a democracy that “the many are smarter than the few.” And why our collective will, such as the one expressed in free and fair elections, is what ultimately makes democracy work. But we also know that the other side of the coin is that we get the government we deserve.

So, shall we leave the elections at that, thank the heavens and the wisdom of crowds for the quality of the exercise and look forward contentedly to another date with history in 2013 with Smartmatic and its PCOS machines, and with the same kind of Comelec governance as in May 2010? I think not. -CHRISTIAN S. MONSOD FORMER CHAIRMAN COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, Manila Times

To be continued