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Mark Joseph P. Cendaña

Mr. Victor Primo

English 103

23 Oct 2009

Automation Election System: Hope of 2010 Elections

The 2010 Philippine national election is fast approaching. The

remaining months before May 2010 will be crucial to the Filipinos but also

exciting – we would hear candidate jingles and see media advertisements,

pamphlets and streamers posted and scattered around the place and

political rallies are about to give a bang. Are we excited for it? Or rather, we

should ask ourselves now, “are we really ready for it?”

In the Philippines, election is always looked forward to by most

Filipinos. Many are enthusiastic to know who will be the next set of officials

that will take over and lead the country for the upcoming years to come.

The optimism of most Filipinos is a sign of hope that we seek for good

leaders. We tend to look forward to a better tomorrow for our country as we

put our trust on leaders we voted. But despite all the hoping for a better

and stronger country, the undermining problems and controversies over the

years are still very much alive in the country. Election has been

accompanied by fear and injustice through the years. It is always

controversial as many fraud cases and issues have remained unsolved. With

the failure of manual voting in the Philippines, it is best that we try to know

what other alternatives that we could go for in order to avoid election frau

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in the Philippines. The new system that the Philippines will have in 2010

election will be the Automated Election System or AES. Specifically it is an

optical scanner known as Precinct Counting Optical Scanner or PCOS that

would count the vote of a ballot through indentifying the shaded oval. With

this new electoral system, it is proper that we should know how this newly

imposed way of counting and canvassing will make a change for the

country’s future. Specifically, we sought to find answers on how we will

achieve free, orderly and honest elections as we pursue a nationwide

automation election system in the Philippines 2010 elections.

During the past elections Philippines, counting and canvassing is

manually done. Section 210 of the Omnibus Code of Elections describes the

whole process of manual election. It is a long process of counting. Every

vote shall be read aloud by the chairman of each precinct and tallied in

tarots. It requires rigorous security in counting and checking of validity of

each casted ballot before tallied by the poll clerk and be passed on to the

canvassing areas such as the municipal and national level (112-125).

For quite a long time, election in the Philippines has lacked freedom.

Freedom is compromised as well as the future of our country when there’s

manipulation of results. Externally, vote-buying is very visible in the

country. But in the election proper, during the counting process, vote

tampering and rigging is also a problem in the country. Even we would say

that many Filipinos volunteered to be poll watchers, the existence of these

problems could still be accounted to the fact that the electoral system in the

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Philippines, especially the process of casting and counting votes, is very

troublesome and problematic. According to an interview with the Director

IV of Education and Information Department of Commission of Elections

James Arthur Jimenez, the teachers, who are the chairman of each precinct,

including the poll clerk and poll watchers experienced coercion during

election by some greedy running candidates who wanted to win instantly

through cheating. Their lives were compromised by threat. Furthermore, in

her book How to fight election fraud, Sen. Miriam Santiago mentions that

there are deliberate distortions of the entries in the election returns by

creating a variance of words and figures entered. Moreover, there is

destruction and theft of electoral returns as well (72). These situations

make us realize that manual voting is very vulnerable to election fraud in

the sense that the democracy, wherein freedom is much highlighted as

right, is not present. On worst scenario, in an article of Doronila, he

mentions that vote-tampering could ignite turmoil and rebellion on the

people (A13). The lack of freedom in elections would not only diminish our

democracy but also compromised country’s progress through time.

Honesty is also absent in the previous election. In the counting

process, Santiago tells us that there was deliberate misrecording in the tally

sheets as the votes are read by the chairman of precinct. Substitution of

ballot filled for counting (72). Even Jimenez describes to the researcher how

tarots in tally sheets are miscopied by the poll clerk deliberately. Imagine a

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4 tarots is recorded as 5 because deliberately it is tallied to look like as if it

looked like 5 tarots already.

According to the Omnibus Code of Election, during elections, after

votes are counted and results are canvassed in the local precincts, ballot-

box containing the vote returns and results are transported to the municipal

or city office for further tabulation. Then the municipal or city results are

passed on the national level for final counting of winners (126-139). This

canvassing stage of elections has been always hindered by ballot-box

stealing cases, especially during the transit of these ballot-boxes containing

the results from the local precinct. There is also theft and destruction that

has happened along the way with the election returns. Sometimes, lives of

people are threatened by the coercive means of stealing. Ballot-boxes were

exchanged by same ballot-boxes containing altered results or ballots

(Santiago 72). Most of the time, cases like this would look like as if nothing

had happened. But this problem would make people’s votes and hope gone

for nothing as well.

Doronila says that for a long time, official results that are being

delayed are opportunity for vote-tampering (A1). As we look back in 2007

elections, we could notice that it would take months before results are

finalized. This problem during the election shows how disorderly the

election in the Philippines could be especially in the canvassing. For one

reason, the lack of centralization system in the country is still a problem.

Doronila asserted that the opportunities for altering results have been

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perceived as a result of the delay of declaring official results. This had lead

to the undermining of public confidence in election and the skepticism of

validity of leadership transition in the country though the years (A1). The

rigorous process of counting and transit of election returns and canvasses

are vulnerable to fraud. The researcher further believes that as we

understand that our country is an archipelago, it is really hard to establish a

system that would connect each 7100 islands, 90 million people with each

other. This means it would be hard to have the results finalized and

announced as soon as possible after the casting of votes. Jimenez mentioned

also that the longer the election results will be finalized, the more unstable

the results would be.

After hearing a lot of news about vote-tampering, ballot box stealing,

violence during the actual election and the tiresome months of waiting for

the final official results, we end up with the question “how valid are the

results?” We question the honesty of process and results during elections.

Thus the researcher believes that there is a need for reviewing the flaws of

ballot-box manual system of election and propose a new system that would

be best and fitting to solve the lack of freedom, honesty and order in the

country.

As what the researcher had presented already, election in the

Philippines has been prevalently troubled by many cases of election fraud

for the past decades. According to a news report, the Philippines is known

to have a tainted history of elections wherein there is violence, massive

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vote-buying, and electoral fraud that always ruin the elections in the

country (BBC News). We could point out that one of the underlying

problems in our country’s election is the use ballot-box system during

casting of votes. This manual election system has caused the slow pace of

the election and thus made it vulnerable to different election fraud cases. In

2007 elections, Center for Media Freedom and Democracy of the

Philippines reported that 3 days after the election day, official COMELEC

count for the Senate elections was laboriously plodding into the thousands.

On the other hand, TV networks counts were already past the millions. It

could be possible that the difference of count and time provides the window

of opportunity for election operators to manipulate the count as the weeks

drag on, and to undermine the people’s will (1).

This upcoming 2010 election is another crucial stage for the

Philippines. This is the time when we Filipinos cast our votes again and

decide who we will choose as leaders that will run the country for next 6

years. In the researcher’s own opinion, with such uncertainty on our

troublesome electoral system, it is important to note that we need to review

the form of election we have been using for quite a long time. But on the

other hand, no matter what changes we will consider or implement, we

should see to it that this 2010 elections will be free, fair and orderly. In an

article by Averdano et. al, he cited that Sen. Escudero’s words that we

should “push through elections – manual or automatic”, but he affirms that

we should see to it that, “[elections] are clean, honest, transparent and

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accurately reflect the will of the people.”(A6). Moreover, in a pledge of Jose

Melo, Commission on Elections Chairman, he included that it will be a

fraud-free, peaceful, clean and honest election in 2010 (A1).

Why is there a need to change the electoral system of the Philippine?

Global institutions on electoral systems have suggested standards on the

proper roles, functions, organization, financing and management of

electoral management bodies (EMB) in countries. One of these standards

includes the automation of the electoral system in order to achieve

sustainability of the EMB. Given the fact that elections in the Philippines

have always been manually conducted, the Commission on Elections or

COMELEC, as the country’s EMB, has been proposing automation election

system not only to satisfy these international standards, but also to reduce,

or better yet, eliminate electoral fraud and violence (IDEA; ACE Electoral

Knowledge Network).

Electoral reforms are very important for 2010. Rene Sarmiento, a

COMELEC Commissioner himself, affirms that the COMELEC is the public

authority in our country today that has to undertake urgent electoral

reforms for the common good. He said also that the present state of the

Philippine elections is far from being admirable and commendable.

Philippine election is always critiqued for its four letter Fs, ‘flaws, fraud,

failures and familial dominance’ (1). He also mentions the sorry state of

electoral process in the country today, wherein there’s familial dominance,

few efforts to correct the flaws in the electoral system that leads to vote-

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rigging scandal, ballot box snatching and ballot switching, uncleaned

voters’ lists, manual and agonizingly protracted vote count and murder of

political leaders (2). The researcher strongly believes that there is really a

need for the country to have an electoral reform with the prevalent cases of

election frauds.

Sarmiento cited “Empowering People to Build a Just Peace in the Asia

Pacific” of Prof. Ed. Garcia, Senior Policy Advisor of International Alert and

former Convenor of Amnesty International-Philippines, who says that bad

governance is the main cause of most problems in Asia today, and he

proposes that to deal with this evil, a house of peace must be built on four

solid foundations, namely: respect for human rights, socio-economic

reforms, political and constitutional reforms and security reforms. With

these, Sarmiento said that COMELEC, similar to the house peace, must rest

on four solid foundations of the 2010 electoral reforms namely: automated

election system, civic literacy and voter education,

capability-building/professionalization of the COMELEC and strengthening

ties with the civil society/election stakeholders (2).

With the statements mentioned above, the researcher strongly

believes that the COMELEC has a role to do with the electoral reforms in

the country. It is important that we should look for the best solution on how

to solve election fraud in the country by reviewing the flaws of the ballot-

box system. This would lead us to a search of a new solution to avoid cases

of cheating and violence in the country. Institute for Political and Electoral

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Reform, Philippines or IPER suggests that it is only comprehensive political

and electoral reforms that can effectively broaden participation in

Philippine democracy specifically the decrease of election violence and

credible electoral dispute resolution can only be done if these reforms are

intact and functioning (9).

In the pursuit of a new electoral reform in the Philippines, specifically

in the casting and counting of votes wherein most cases of election fraud

happens, today’s technological advancements are good factors we need to

consider to establish our reforms. According ACE Electoral Knowledge

Network, technology exists and plays a vital role in activities related to the

electoral process. The use of technology includes for instance the following

activities in the election: to gather voter lists, to set electoral boundaries, to

train staff, to print ballots, to conduct voter education campaigns, to record

cast votes, to count and consolidate vote results and to publish election

results. Furthermore, it is cited that the appropriate usage and application

of technology to the election process can make an increase in

‘administrative efficiency’, lessen costs, and enhance ‘political transparency

(paragraph 1).

Giving emphasis on technology, it is best to review and understand

the mechanism and advantage of automated election system or AES for the

Philippines upcoming 2010 elections. Automated election system,

hereinafter referred to as AES – is a system using appropriate technology

which has been demonstrated in the voting, counting, consolidating,

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canvassing, and transmission of election results, and other electoral

processes (Republic Act No. 9369). Since May to July 2009, newspapers,

television and other reporting media had continually emphasized the leap

action of the government especially the effort of COMELEC to consider and

push through with a full and nationwide automated poll election in the 2010

elections.

The idea of adopting an AES in the Philippines is not actually an

abrupt decision that happened in a blink of an eye. It is very essential to

review some republic acts of the Philippines that has been approved by the

government. This includes Republic Act No. 9369 approved last January 23,

2007 that emphasizes the responsibility and action of COMELEC for the

innovation of automating our poll election in the upcoming elections

especially in 2010 which would encourage transparency, credibility,

fairness and accuracy of election (Republic of the Philippines, Congress of

the Philippines). It is best that we put a good knowledge and understanding

on the advantages of this technology and its effect on the upcoming

election.

Senator Edgardo Angara mentioned that transparency is what is

needed by the country, and immediately asserted that it is through an

automated election that we ensure the Filipino citizens’ votes will be

protected and counted in order to arrive to the appointing the next

leaders of the country (Alave and Ubac A-6). Sen. Angara words are

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important to note when we are in doubt of the credibility, neutrality

and security of the AES.

In the researcher’s opinion, there will be order in poll automation. The

uniformity of procedures in election will make a difference on effect. As for

some reasons, implementing an automated system of elections enables

mobility among voters and also raises voter turnout by offering additional

channels, widens access for citizens with disabilities, reduces cost, and

delivers voting results reliably and more quickly (Krimmer, 2006).

The promise of technology makes life easy. With AES, the results of

winners will be announced at most about 2 days or at least 36 hours after

the voting is over by 6pm according to COMELEC (Jimenez). The prolonged

process of election in the Philippines especially in finalizing the results

made it more vulnerable for the results and ballot boxes altered and stolen

as weeks had already passed from the day of casting the votes (Doronila A-

1, A-13). COMELEC also asserts that election with AES will be simple

wherein the process of voting, counting and generation of results will be

quick.

The great advantage of AES is at most the elimination of election

fraud. With the long records of election fraud cases in the Philippine, the

necessity of going for an electoral system that would best work or address

for the type of problem we have is very important. In his work Automating

elections: Electronic voting machines have made mistakes too, Verzola said

that the most common reason for abandoning manual elections and going

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for automation is to eliminate the clerical errors that have been endemic of

manual election counts (1). In addition, the COMELEC mentioned that the

canvassing process is transparent, auditable with no human-intervention

(Jimenez). Thus security is assured in an automated poll election and also

our votes.

In the course of pursuing the AES system in the Philippines, Sen.

Angara made his analogy on why it is important for us to go for an

automated election in 2010. Angara mentioned that automation of our

election in the country is a response to the current economic recession we

are experiencing. There is a demand that our national elections will be

credible and accurate, and express the will of the people. In this case, we

could say that freedom, honesty and order will be achieved through AES. In

addition, he asserted that any doubt with its results could stir political

instability and would lead to a ‘downward spiral of political uncertainty’ and

‘economic mess’. This effective election can only happen if we will have

from clean, fair and credible elections (Senate of the Philippines paragraph

2). He also affirms that the going for an automated electoral system is a

crucial step towards clean and honest elections though it won’t really be the

total cure for all election frauds that had existed and might also exist in

2010 elections. But at least, automating the polls will eliminate a lot of the

human intervention like vote-rigging (Senate of the Philippines paragraph

4).

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The researcher could most probably reflect what Sen. Angara said

about the AES with the interview conducted with Jimenez. In a summarized

list, he mentions that AES could foremost remove the teacher from coercion

and hoodlum of the dirty politics in the Philippines. It would be a quicker

and easier way for the election process especially in the counting and

canvassing stage. The system design specifically the PCOS is democratize

wherein transparency is much achieve. Every one after the election will

have access with the results through internet and other official institutions

such as NAMFREL and KBP. They made the system resistant to hacking

wherein tampering would turn out to be evident if there is any. With the

given possibilities of good outcome with new election system, COMELEC

hopes to achieve their goals in the upcoming election to the free, honest

and orderly.

The Philippines is in need of a new electoral system that won’t only

give a good transition of the positions in the government and have leaders

that the majority had chosen, but it is more of acquiring a system that

would address the existing cases election fraud in the country that had

seemed to have undermined our progress as a nation, politically, socially

and economically. Jimenez gave his remarks on the promising effect of AES

to the 2010 election by assuring that the counting and canvassing stage of

election will be at most free from the cheating and other means of

manipulating the results. Yet he leaves a remark that AES will not cure the

entire problem in our elections. Counting and canvassing is just part of it.

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He asks “how about vote buying, stupidity and other coercion? How can we

address it?” These problems are not addressed by AES. But at most, he

assures that the winner of the election will be accurate. He said that there’s

hope for the country, but there’s more to be done.

Given the promise of automation election system, it really aims to

achieve the ideal concept we should have with our elections. That is, it is

free from any fraud cases due human intervention and corruption; there is

honesty in all means of knowing the truth about who has the most votes and

who cheated; and have order, or peaceful, wherein it won’t waste,

compromise or threaten lives of people who only wants to make the

elections a success in the country. Let’s us all be ready and critical with the

every changes in the country. In the end, the success of the 2010 election is

up to us if we will be vigilant about the truth and the good for our country

and for the betterment of the Filipino people.

Works Cited

ACE Electoral Knowledge Network. “Overview of Elections and Technology”

2009. ACE. 3 Oct 2008 <http://aceproject.org/aceen/topics/et/et10/?

searchterm=automation>.

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Alave, Kristine, and Michael Lim Ubac. “‘Dream’ Polls Promised:

Smartmatic Vows 100% Accuracy, Winners in 3 Days.” Philippine

Daily Inquirer 5 July 2009: A1 and A6.

Averdano et. al. “Firm’s Pullout Very Suspicious, Say Gordon.” Philippine

Daily Inquirer 30 June 2009: A1 & A6.

BBC News. “Violence Mars Philippine Count”. 15 May 2008. BBC

International. 15 Oct 2009

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6655079.stm>.

Doronilla, Amando. “Dirty Polls in 2010 Can Spark Revolt.” Philippine Daily

Inquirer 29 June 2009: A1 and A13.

IPER. Understanding the Election-related Violent Incidence of 2007

Election. Manila: Institute for Political and Electoral Reform. 2008.

Jimenez, James Arthur. Personal Interview. 20 Oct 2009.

Krimmer, Robert. Electronic Voting. A Conference Proceeding from the 2nd

International Workshop Co-organized by Council of Europe, ESF TED,

IFIP WG 8.5 and E-Voting.CC. Bonn: KöllenDruck and Verlag GmbH.

2006.

Olivares-Cunanan, Belinda. “Go Manual Now and Make Our Machines in

2016.” Philippine Daily Inquirer 1 July 2009: A6.

Santiago, Miriam Defensor. Election Code Annotated (Omnibus Code of

Election). Quezon City: Phoenix Press, Inc., 2001.

Santiago, Miriam Defensor. How to Fight Election Fraud. Metro Manila:

Zita Publishing Corporation, 1991.

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Sarmiento, Rene. Building the House of Electoral Reforms for 2010 and

Beyond. Forum in San Beda College, Alabang. 2008 Feb 27.

Senate of the Philippines. “Automated Elections: Vital Step Towards

Ensuring Credible Transition of Power – Angara.” 11 May 2009.

Senate of the Philippines 14th Congress. 2 Aug. 2009 <

http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0511_angara2.asp>.

Verzola, Roberto. “Automating Elections: Electronic Voting Machines Have

Made Mistakes Too”. HALAL Working Paper No.4. Social Science

Research Network. 20 June 2008.

References

ACE Electoral Knowledge Network. (2009). “Overview of elections and

technology”. ACE. Retrieve Oct 3, 2008, from

http://aceproject.org/aceen/topics/et/et10/?

searchterm=automation.

Alave, K. and Ubac, L. (2009, July 5). Dream’ polls promised: Smartmatic

vows 100% accuracy, winners in 3 days. Philippine Daily Inquirer, A1

and A6.

Averdano et. al. (2009, June 30). Firm’s pullout very suspicious, say Gordon.

Philippine Daily Inquirer, A1 & A6.

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BBC News. (2008). Violence mars Philippine count. BBC International.

Retrieved October15, 2009, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-

pacific/6655079.stm.

Doronilla, A. (2009, June 29) Dirty polls in 2010 can spark revolt. Philippine

Daily Inquirer, A1 and A13.

IPER. (2008). Understanding the election-related violent incidence of 2007

election. Manila: Institute for Political and Electoral Reform.

Krimmer, R. Electronic Voting. (2006). A conference proceeding from the

2nd International Workshop co-organized by Council of Europe, ESF

TED, IFIP WG 8.5 and E-Voting.CC. Bonn: KöllenDruck and Verlag

GmbH.

Olivares-Cunanan, B. (2009, July 1): Go manual now and make our machines

in 2016. Philippine Daily Inquirer, A6.

Santiago, M. D. (2001). Election code annotated (Omnibus Code of

Election). Quezon City: Phoenix Press, Inc.

Santiago, M. D. (1991). How to fight election fraud. Metro Manila: Zita

Publishing Corporation.

Sarmiento, Rene. (2008, Feb 27). Building the House of Electoral Reforms

for 2010 and Beyond. Forum in San Beda College, Alabang.

Senate of the Philippines. (2009) Automated elections: vital step towards

ensuring credible transition of power – Angara. Senate of the

Philippines 14th Congress. Retrieved August 2, 2009, from

http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0511_angara2.asp.

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Verzola, R. (2008, June 20). Automating elections: electronic voting

machines have made mistakes too. HALAL Working Paper No.4.

Social Science Research Network.