Thoughts About Automated Elections

[Note: This is a reply to Mr. G.'s thread in USEP-IC forum - Assignment 3: Your thoughts about automated elections with reference to the current situation...]

With the height of technology we have in the world today, chances of automation of various manual systems we use in the old centuries becomes extremely bigger. In the case of third-world countries like the Philippines, maybe not all systems have been computerized, or less. The Electoral process is just a concrete example.

Other nations have been developing, testing, and using automated elections for the past years. And we have our century-old manual system of counting votes. As years passed, it has been observed that troubles caused by election frauds are getting more frequent and the situation worsens through time. This may be due to delays in counting and canvassing that tends to become prone to schemes of deceitful people who have their intention of manipulating votes in favor of their chosen candidate(s). The longer the time it takes the votes to be counted, the more exposed the ballot boxes are, the chances of fraud becomes fatter.

To address this kind of problem, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decided to go on a computerized election process this coming May 2010 Election. Duly supported by majority of the Senate leaders, with the House Bill 5715 (Automated Electoral System Act) being passed by the Congress and was signed by the President, the P11.3 billion supplemental budget is now being allocated. (All go for automated elections in 2010, Inquirer.net) Comelec had already the winning bidder, Smartmatic, a foreign company, in partnership with Total Information Management Inc., for the machines that will be used for the elections. Although there were some Senate leaders who are not in favor of the automation and few lawmakers and IT professionals who are skeptic, they are pursuing the automated election system.

As an IT student, I see an opportunity for technological advancement of our country in this issue. This is a chance of breaking out to the old system of manual counting of votes to a computerized operation. Here we can truly realize the advantages and benefits of computers and we can fulfill the solutions offered by modernization. Such is a stepping stone to future advancements in our country and the people. Considering that the election is a critical system, the use and application of technology, I should say, should be implemented long ago.

Several solutions that this Automated Electoral System (AES) bring focus primarily on the speed of canvassing and counting votes. Since the machine will automatically count after the voter inputs his ballots, the time it takes for the results of the votes to yield is much faster making it less prone to possible frauds along the canvassing state. The cheaters who are not that knowledgeable in computer will realize that they can no longer use their old tricks. Also the possibility of misreading and manual tampering of Election Returns (ERs) and Certificates of Canvas (COCs) will be lessened. (Automated Election Fraud, Manuel Alcuaz Jr., Phil. Daily Inquirer). Programmers and developers and IT professionals would be highly recognized in this mission-critical situation.

However, as I read about the articles in the net, I found several chances of electoral fraud as noticed by some concerned individuals. Yes, the possible deceptions of controlling the results will be prevented as the time is narrowed down. But it does not necessarily mean that there will be no faults. In fact, the probability of electoral frauds is much higher compared to the manual system.

It is been described that in the election process, the voting is done manually and the counting will be automated. So in other words, it is not FULL-automated elections contrary to what the Comelec Chair Jose Melo stated that we will be having a full-automation this coming election. The Precinct Counting Optical Scan (PCOS) will be used in the automation. PCOS is a ballot-based system in which the voter will mark his choices on a specially printed ballot that features security markings. The ballot will then be fed into a scanner, which records and stores the votes. (All go for automated elections 2010, Inquirer.net).

”In the old manual system, the hard copy of the precinct ERs were brought to the municipality to be read and entered in the statement of votes, which was visible to watchers. Watchers could compare the statement of votes with their own copies of the ER. Before the ER was read and added to the statement of votes, the authenticity of the ER was first verified.”

In this measure, only the person who is in charge of the operation of the machine knows the real score of what was really going on. Whereas, the previous manual system in which the board of election inspectors writes ‘sticks’ corresponding to every single vote offers a good view of the ongoing tally for the watchers and the people in the precinct levels to see. Thus, transparency is lost. Voters will not know if there is fraud taking place.

The automated system uses the Internet making it connected to the official election monitoring parties online. As we are aware of it, Internet has all the ways – be it good, or evil. This offers a vast opportunity for a third party to interfere with the automation process. And there is similar probability that this person will be able to ‘twist’ the truth by accessing the system. Likewise, the monitoring parties will only be able to monitor the canvassing or the ongoing process through online. This means that they rely on the actual counting of votes that the system does, and perhaps not doing their own canvassing independent of the results of the automation tally.

“OMR machines are used in schools for scoring tests and in survey companies for tabulating survey results.Members of the administrative staff in schools and survey companies do not change the source code. They provide a scoring or tabulating table to modify how the OMR machine scores a test or tabulates a survey.By changing this table, fraud is easily committed. In order to cheat on the OMR counting machines, all that is needed is to download a new counting table that changes for whom a shaded circle is counted.In areas where the candidates that want to cheat are weak, the table can be modified so that votes will be switched.. How would the counting tables be switched? Since the OMR machines are connected to the Internet, it is possible for an outside party, in connivance with Comelec or system vendor people, to enable an unseen computer to load the fraudulent table. At the end of counting, the original table can be reloaded so that any tests would indicate that the machines are counting correctly and honestly. It could also be possible for someone that seems to be authorized to quickly insert a USB memory stick that would load the fraudulent table.”

Having experienced a lot of times about the uses of a memory stick and the Internet, I could say that the above probabilities is not hard to do. Even I, a non-Election Inspector could have the skill to manipulate the system if the complexity of the automation system does not have a strong error-checking or security.

I could see that if there would be no high security in terms of safeguarding our votes, the essence of the Automated Electoral System will not be fully appreciated. It will instead create a massive fraud since there are many weak spots noticed.

Issue of the Smartmatic-TIM

I’ve learned that Filipino-owned Total Information Management (TIM) withdrew its joint venture with partner Netherlands-based Smartmatic Corp., the winning bidder of the poll automation supplies. The Comelec and the Smartmatic people themselves did not expect for this since it was a fairly good negotiation with the contract. But according to TIM, the reason is due to some irreconcilable differences.

I don’t really understand why TIM pulled out of the contract signing all of a sudden after all the joint venture agreement TIM and the Smartmatic had during the bidding process. If ‘irreconcilable differences’ are their grounds, I don’t believe it’s reasonable enough to back out. I have a feeling something’s going on behind. Moreover, Smartmatic alone cannot continue with them only signing the contract. For it is not allowed that a foreign company does not have a Filipino partner to do business inside the country.

So what will happen now in the planned full automation process this coming election?! Furthermore, I guess it was also better that, problems such that arises in the present, than meeting it on along the way almost near to the Election Day itself.

Reflection on the IT aspect

When I heard the expression of the Edupro Inc. president of the Nexus Technologies Group during one of the Tech Update Sessions of the recent COMDDAP 2009 Expo I’ve attended, I realized how great is the call of responsibility of an IT professional to his customer is.

When he challenged the speaker of the Open Source for Business Applications session on what’s his stand towards whether to use proprietary softwares for mission-critical events like the Automated Elections, or use open source developed applications. Having the situation we have right now – the pulling out of the TIM with its Smartmatic partner – the possibility of implementing a full automation is threatening to slim down. Rumors say, we could have the option of letting our local software developers help configure the automation system. In the case of proprietary software, we could utilize the programs/system developed by foreign countries that may have used similar automated electoral system and test it in our process. On the other hand, we could choose to have the open source developed applications, use it, let the system be developed by local software specialists, validated by foreign companies, then, after the election, it could have the chance of offering it to other countries where it can be improved.

The situation is just synonymous to a person typing in a text editor. “If you type in Word, would you spend almost 4,000 plus to buy MS suite or would you just download it from the net? I suggest you download it from the net,” the president of the Edupro stated. What I’ve learned from what he said is that, the options call for the needs. If you work for an enterprise, and there are such big factors like security and reliability, you go for proprietary. The decision of the developer should focus on the client’s needs where there are several factors to be considered. These are the liabilities of the programmer. In the case of proprietary, say for example there is a failure in using the system, chances are the corporation who developed the software will be blamed.

Now in connection to the automated elections 2010, the considerations focus on 10 to 20 hired developers who will build up the system. Say for example, if you hire them for 6 months or so, will you lock them in and hide them inside a workroom where they can’t be seen by the media so they would not be embarrassed and pressured by the press if their developed system is a failure? Will you feed their families for 6 months since they’re away from home? Will you provide security for their loved ones knowing there may be some politicians who might influence them and insist demands? These are just some of the risks of doing it locally.

The gentleman concluded his sharing in an message that says “Nothing is free. In some point in time, you will pay for it. You may have to pay for it.”

Relating it to the ultimate question of whether to use proprietary or open source development software this coming automated elections, I don’t really know my stand. One thing’s for sure, I will see to it that my user’s needs are gratified, and I will not make anything that might harm my self, my client, and the others. I hope this is the same thinking that the officials will have as they prepare for our country’s Automated Elections.

My grateful appreciation to the following sources which provided me the facts I needed to construct this reflection...
References:
Kristine L. Alave, Michael Lim Ubac, "All go for automated elections in 2010 ", Phil. Daily Inquirer - Inquirer.net
[http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090306-192592/All-go-for-automated-elections-in-2010]
Shiela Crisostomo, "Smartmatic partner pulls out; Comelec eyes its own tie-up", PhilStar.com
[Smartmatic partner pulls out; Comelec eyes its own tie-up ]
Manuel A. Alcuaz Jr., "Automated election fraud ",Philippine Daily Inquirer
[http://business.inquirer.net/money/columns/view/20090706-214009/Automated-election-fraud]
Aurea Calica, "Senators see danger in 2010 automated polls ", PhilStar.com
[http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=481760]