Automated 2013 Philippine polls worse than 2010 elections: watchdog

The Automated Elections Systems Watch (AES Watch) deplored the glitches in the precinct count optical scan machines (PCOS) as well as the software licensing issues that came with it.

“Compared to 2010, there are more data discrepancies as well as open and brazen possible manipulation of data at the stage of canvassing and consolidation,” the group said.

 

Integrity in doubt

In a press briefing yesterday, AES Watch cited the 44-hour lag in transmission of election returns, which it warned might cast doubt on the integrity of the results.

IT expert and panellist Lito Azurin pointed out that even the practice of manual voting poses risks to the credibility of the elections.

“The ballot, since it is not immediately fed into the PCOS machine, is exposed to post-voting manipulation. The delay in transmission also means that the returns are open to manipulation,” he said.

Azurin noted that as of Friday night, or five days after the elections, 23 per cent of election returns had not yet been transmitted.

Metro Manila, for example, has 10 per cent untransmitted returns while the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) had 44 per cent.

 

More machine glitches

Compared to the 2010 elections, there were more PCOS machine glitches in last Monday’s polls, AES Watch claimed. It noted that delays in transmissions in 2010 took only two days.

The 23 per cent of untransmitted election returns affected 8.6 million voters, said panellist Temario Rivera.

More than half, or 911, out of the 1,173 reports to AES Watch were PCOS-related, such as initialisation errors, machine breakdowns, hardware problems and rejected ballots, while 1,432 clustered precincts reported transmission problems.

 

‘Ultra-fast, inflated’ count

The group also cited the “ultra-fast and inflated” count of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) caused by program error, the 44-hour lull at 69 per cent transmission of returns, and the absence of random manual audit results up to now.

AES Watch said it had called for 100 per cent full random manual audit weeks before the polls to establish the accuracy of the elections, but this was ignored by the Comelec.

The group also took the Comelec to task for its decision to proclaim the winning senatorial candidates after only 20 per cent of election returns had been canvassed. It said the poll body’s action was “arbitrary and highly questionable”.

“All these raise the issue of whether the Comelec is not only short-cutting the process but also dictating the results of the election in violation of the people’s right to suffrage,” the group said.

Nelson Celis of the Philippine Computer Society added that before the May 13 elections, they did not see any document that would attest to the accuracy of the 82,000 PCOS machines deployed all over the country.

Although the Comelec held mock elections in July 2012, the accuracy level was at 97 per cent, which Celis said was below the 99.995 per cent requirement.

“It is poor project management,” he said.

 

Licensing issues

Pablo Manalastas cited the software licensing issues of Smartmatic and Dominion. He noted that Dominion, which granted a licence to Smartmatic for 2009 to 2014, had cancelled this in 2010.

Smartmatic had promised “a perpetual licence” to Comelec under the option-to-purchase agreement with the poll body.

“But based on what happened, it would appear that there was no software licence for the recent elections. We would be pirating software,” Manalastas said.

He also questioned Smartmatic’s offer of a perpetual licence to Comelec even if Smartmatic itself did not have a perpetual licence since its licence from Dominion was cancelled in 2010.

 

Conspiracy

Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr on Saturday accused AES Watch of being involved in a “conspiracy” to cast doubts on the credibility of the 2013 elections.

Brillantes said he would come out next week with a formal announcement regarding the alleged conspiracy of the AES Watch.

“I will no longer comment. I will be coming officially with a statement regarding AES later. Anytime next week. I’m going to show conspiracy on the part of some people in AES,” Brillantes told reporters.