PRESS STATEMENT
Media Forum on the 2010 Elections
CBCP News & Catholic Media Network
May 26, 2009
VOTERS
SHOULD CALL FOR TRANSPARENT
AND CREDIBLE ELECTIONS IN 2010
By Bobby Tuazon
Director for Policy Study
CenPEG
There are high expectations for the May 10, 2010 elections. An expected
50 million registered voters will elect candidates for some 18,000
elective positions with about 90,000 aspirants vying. There are
two major highlights of the elections: First, a new President will
be elected to succeed Mrs. Arroyo although there are mixed reports
whether the incumbent president will give up her post voluntarily.
Second, is that it will be the first elections to be automated –
with much anticipation that, since it is automated, it will enhance
the right to suffrage and promote the sovereign power of the people
to elect a new government. In fact, many Filipinos have been made
to believe that automation will reduce fraud and bring credibility
back to the electoral process.
Whether
credibility will be restored in the May 2010 elections, the country’s
50 million voters may be disappointed. There are basically three
reasons:
1)
The Precinct Count Optical Scan – Optical Mark Reader (PCOS-OMR)
chosen by the Comelec does not fully comply with the principle of
“secret voting and public counting” and has critical
faults that may likely result in wholesale electronic cheating;
2)
The automated election system (AES) of Comelec, with PCOS-OMR as
its core instrument, deprives the voters of their right to know
how their votes are counted and how the entire election results
are arrived at. The system virtually removes the vital requisites
of a credible, democratic electoral process: transparency, public
scrutiny, public auditability, and public participation;
3)
Although there are good elements inside Comelec, the poll body is
ill-advised and ill-prepared for the May 10, 2010 automated national
and local elections;
As
to the first: There are innumerable cases pointing to the technical
deficiencies and vulnerabilities of the OMR which were also manifested
when it was pilot-tested in the August 2008 ARMM elections with
at least 23 errors and flaws recorded. A number of companies involved
in automated elections in many countries have faced both scandals
and lawsuits due to machine errors and fraud. Moreover, the OMR
technology operates on secrecy in the counting of votes at the precinct
from where the results are transmitted for canvassing and consolidation
from the municipal to the national levels – all unseen by
the naked eye. With the automated system programmed to proclaim
the election winners in 2-3 days, public monitoring, poll watching,
and electoral protests will be deprived of both sufficient data
and material time for filing election protests. That this will
result in an avalanche of election protests all over the country
is a grim scenario with serious political implications. Will not
the whole secrecy and vulnerability of the system result in a wholesale
electronic cheating? Will this not lead to a failure of elections?
As
to the second: Under the Comelec’s PCOS-OMR system, the vital
requisite of voters’ participation, public scrutiny, oversight
and auditing will be lost. The whole automated election system is
left primarily in the hands of the Comelec and the technology contractor
– and, unknown to us, the cheats – thus making the entire
electoral process like a private transaction. Is the Comelec being
inconsistent with RA 9369 which provides for transparent and credible
election automation? Is it violating the Omnibus Election Code (BP
881) which similarly calls for transparency in the vote counting?
But there are assurances from the Comelec chair himself: “Trust
us and trust the machines.” We say, good intentions are not
enough; trust is built over time. Considering Comelec’s apparent
failure to address the systemic and pandemic problem of fraud and
the poll body’s tarnished record, can we expect the country’s
50 million voters not to cast doubt on its claim?
We
reiterate that the people have the right to demand transparency
in the entire electoral process, including making the source code
public. Whichever company will win in the bidding cannot invoke
proprietary rights or trade secrecy to a technology that has been
paid for in taxpayers’ money.
It
is precisely because of its lack of transparency that many countries
are having second thoughts over the use of electronic voting or
automated election. Last March 2009, Germany’s Federal Constitutional
Court declared electronic voting unconstitutional because of its
lack of transparency. In the U.S., a federal lawsuit (“National
Clean Elections Lawsuit” or NCEL) is asking a New York court
to declare electronic voting unconstitutional not only for its secrecy
but also because it provides abundant opportunities for criminal
sabotage, election fraud, and errors of all types at almost every
step of the election process. In The Netherlands the Dutch government
has imposed a moratorium on electronic voting while Ireland has
banned electronic voting. In the world, only Venezuela has gone
into full automation in its electoral system while only 15 countries
are partially-computerized, including the U.S.
And,
finally: There may be well-meaning figures in the Comelec, but we
find the poll body ill-advised and unprepared for the full automated
elections. There are several reasons:
1)
The Comelec failed to consult the Filipino ICT community, computer
academe, and election watchdogs from where it could have sourced
the local expertise and technology that are already available for
the electoral process as well as suitable to the local conditions,
which the law requires;
2) The poll body has a problem with time management (it is already
delayed practically by one month in its pre-automation calendar
of activities) – a concern which CenPEG had raised in February
this year - which reflects its lack of an operations manual, unavailable
internal IT infrastructure and expertise (CAC report, October 2008);
3)
Its compliance with RA 9369 and other election-related laws may
need a review considering, for example, that at least two major
provisions of the automated election law were not followed in the
2008 ARMM elections (review of the source code; and pilot testing).
4)
While it tends to bend its rules and calendar to accommodate the
objectives of foreign multinational bidding companies, it has practically
shut its doors to critical, dissenting opinions, and requests for
transparent documents especially those pertaining to the election.
CenPEG
reiterates that it supports automated elections – subject
however that the technology should ensure an open, transparent,
credible, and voter-friendly elections. Rather than going full-blast
immediately, election automation should be evolving, i.e., gradual
and in phases, and suitable to the Philippine conditions. Technology
should promote the principle of “secret voting and public
counting” as well as the inalienable power of the people over
the vote and the entire election process. CenPEG also believes,
however, that no amount of election modernization will work unless
the well-entrenched and powerful cheating machineries are made irrelevant.
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