Beyond what the voters experienced

Editor’s note: The Manila Times today publishes the second part of the serialization of Mr. Monsod’s assessment of the May 2010 automated polls. The assessment 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.

Second of six parts

We need to go beyond the personal experiences of the voters and the poll workers. What they witnessed was real. They shaded  the ballot, inserted it into a machine, watched the numbers come out of it, watched the teacher press the transmission buttons and monitored the totals on television and the steady and speedy proclamation of winners from the ground up.

The favorable comments are consistent with the trust we put in the modern amenities we take for granted every day—the accuracy of the bank teller machine, the cell phone, live and on-the-spot television and so on and so forth. But we must not forget that before those became everyday amenities there were experts who made it their business to question self-serving promotions, and applied their expertise to make sure the technology was safe, cost-effective and suitable to the consumers before it was mass-produced. Our automation was mass-produced in one step, was not really pilot-tested satisfactorily and was provided by a supplier who had no extensive experience in the technology and seemed to be also learning while it was being implemented.

That is probably why the voters in the surveys also expressed concern about what they did not see, which are left for the experts to answer—34 percent of the voters thought that there was cheating in some levels, 43 percent before the elections and 28 percent after the elections thought that the machines were used to sabotage the results and only 50 percent thought the machine results were definitely accurate although an additional 34 percent thought it was “somewhat accurate,” whatever that nuance means. Moreover, as SWS (Social Weather Stations) notes, “pre-election and post-elections report about other types of elections irregularities were also not markedly less in 2010 than in previous manual elections.”

OMR (Optical Mark Reading) is simple technology. But there are many things that must accompany the machine to make it work properly—the safeguards against rigging and hacking, the specific configuration that meets the legal and technical environment of its use and an attention to the details of implementation, possible vulnerabilities that take their toll sooner or later and, if ignored in the exuberance of the moment, can have catastrophic consequences. We have seen too many delayed-reaction airplane accidents to allow that to happen to our electoral system.

The net trust rating of the Abalos Commission about the time of the 2004 elections was very high, as high as that of the Melo Commission during the 2010 elections. By the end of 2005, as we learned more about what really happened in the elections, that net-trust rating had plunged to the lowest of any commission in history. What if we had given the Abalos Commission an award for outstanding performance? That is why we need to hear from the IT (information technology) community when it comes to the technology and the implications of its performance or non-performance. There is more to it than meets the eye.

I am reminded of that paraprosdokian: “I would like to die peacefully in my sleep like my father, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”

Our electoral system is that vehicle and the driver is the Comelec (Commission on Elections). And I am glad that the IT community is screaming and yelling now rather than later.

The opinions of experts and election practitioners

Here are some excerpts from their assessments as well as those from others who were deeply involved in the elections:

“At the national level, our assessment is of a mixed success. Automation showed no substantial advantage. On the local level, our assessment is profound unease . . .”

”Automated elections . . . [are] the least transparent kind of elections . . .”

”Before the next automated elections, all the loopholes in the PCOS [Precinct Count Optical Scan] machines and the automated election process should be firmly plugged . . .”

“If not, a reversion to manual elections with heightened vigilance by organizations like the PPCRV [Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting] and Namfrel [National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections] would probably yield more credible and accurate results.”

– Rep. Teddy Locsin of Makati City, House committee chairman on electoral reform:

“ . . . the Commission on Elections’ claim of ‘successful’ automated elections [is] a sham . . . the defective automated election system . . . was not only vulnerable to various glitches and management failures but also favorable for electronic cheating including possible pre-loading of election results.”

– Center for People Empowerment in Governance (Cenpeg)

“Notwithstanding the results of the May 2010 elections with respect to the national elections . . . not all of the local electoral results could be relied upon to the same extent . . . the automated election system is in serious need of review and remedial measures.”

– Namfrel

“The new technology greatly facilitated the counting and canvassing. However, peaceful and expedient elections did not translate to honest and credible elections. Although the automated system has seemingly eliminated the practice of wholesale cheating . . . election offenses like threats, intimidation, unlawful electioneering and most especially vote-buying were proved to be most prevalent.”

– Legal Network for Truthful Elections Inc. (Lente)

“While most people were celebrating the perceived success of the automated elections, many were finding reasons to discredit the AES [Automated Election System]. These detractors included losing candidates, self-proclaimed IT experts and election operators that were put out of business . . . They could not substantiate any claim of electoral fraud committed by the AES.”

– Comelec Advisory Council

The Comelec Advisory Council said, “It was not a perfectly executed exercise by any stretch of the imagination. The preparation time was too short . . . Smartmatic-TIM committed numerous mistakes . . . some of which nearly derailed the entire exercise.”
“The Comelec also made several questionable decisions that placed the integrity of the AES in jeopardy . . . However, after the new President was proclaimed and many of fears surrounding the election automation were put to rest . . . . despite all the mistakes, the AES ultimately did work . . . . The Comelec is better off not exercising the option to purchase the PCOS machines, so it can look for an even better solution for the 2013 elections.

“As the wise book says, ‘all things shall come to pass,’ the TWG-RMA [Technical Working Group-Random Manual Audit] with relief and thankfulness says, ‘Just as in the AES that happened in the 2010 elections, and happened well, so, too with God’s grace, the RMA did happen, and happened considerably well.’”

– PPCRV

“Automated elections have been conducted in Mindanao since 1997 . . . [and] have  brought significant improvements in the speed of counting the votes . . . . .

Unfortunately, these improvements were not sufficient to break the established system of command vote, in which political leaders dictate people’s choices . . . Automated elections [are] not the solution. We need to broaden our scope to solve the electoral problems.”

– CARE-Mindanao

We might conclude that the assessments are poles apart, because of a few illogical remarks and personal attacks which have no place in a debate among professionals.

In fact, there are many areas of agreement. There was general acceptance of the results, especially for the national elections. There was agreement that the elections were attended both by perennial problems and by problems associated with automation, and there (also) was agreement that there was a need for a thorough review of the system and for corrective measures if the AES is going to be used again.

Finally, there was agreement (too) that the PCOS machines should not be purchased. Thus, if the Comelec decides to purchase the machines, it might be a good idea to insist that all those involved in the transaction be subjected to a lie-detector test, and asked the question, how much is the commission on this deal?

The main disagreement is in the process, its efficacy, its security and even its accuracy at certain levels. But the problem is that the Comelec has made it difficult to find out in any objective manner the answers to the questions raised.

The Comelec was advised before the elections a system test that (1) total transparency is the key to promoting confidence and integrity in the electoral system; and (2) it must remain in control of the entire election process and never permit it to become vendor-driven. And how “vital it is for the Comelec to share factual information about the automation and testing processes to accurately inform the public, including groups most critical of the automation project, and to debunk misinformation and rumors.”

Unfortunately, the Comelec, and Smartmatic did not heed the advice. –Christian S. Monsod , Former Chairman Commission On Elections, Manila Times

To be continued