PCOS: Making Sure Our Votes Count by Ricardo Saludo

7/31/2019 PCOS: Making Sure Our Votes Count by Ricardo Saludo

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CONTENTS BUSINESS NATION WORLD TECHNOLOGY HEALTH/LIFESTYLE

Making Every Filipino Vote Count

With PCOS machines back

in harness, Comelec and the

citizenry must join hands to

ensure the peoples will wins

With the Supreme Court decision allowing

the Commission on Elections to buy all

82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS)

machines used in the 2010 elections, the

effort to safeguard election integrity shifts

to both the Comelec and the citizenry,

including election workers of political

groups, joining hands to institute and

implement iron-clad mechanisms againstcomputerized fraud.

In this two-part article, The CenSEI Report

reviews the technology, procedures and

2010 performance of the PCOS automated

election system (AES), then expounds on

recommended measures to help safeguard

the integrity of elections using the voting,

counting and canvassing technology and

well or not so well PCOS-AES did in 2010.

Right from the start, the election

automation project was fraught with

problems. It began two decades ago when

then Comelec Chairman Christian Monsod

made it part of his election modernization

program, as an ABS-CBN timeline recounts.

In 1994 the Commission was ready to bid

out an automation project, but Congress

failed to pass a law mandating AES. RA

8436was passed in December 1997, for

national elections the following year, but

the 1998 voting and counting were again

manual (see The Long Road to Election

Automation graphic on page 16).

State of the Nation Address

in 2001, Gloria Arroyo declared election

STRATEGY POINTS

In reusing the PCOS automated electionsystem, top priority is addressing itsweaknesses and failings laid bare in the2010 polls

Safeguards and procedures were sidestepped

in last elections. Without them, it would bebetter to go back to manual counting

Election software manipulation happens evenin advanced nations. Unless it can be stopped,automated polls are not secure

By Ricardo Saludo

Smartmatics Cesar Flores shows PCOS features to SenatorsKoko Pimentel and Juan Ponce Enrile YouTube

NATION

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automation a top priority of her

administration and released 2 billion for

the project. It was covered in Chapter 13 of

the 2004-2010 Medium-Term Philippine

Development Plan. Comelec contracted

in 2004, but the Supreme Courtvoided the

1-billion deal for violating procurement

laws and rules. RA 9369 was passed in

2007 for the 2010 polls, and 11.3 billion

was allocated by Congress,

bringing the total provided

by the Arroyo government

to $15 billion.

Automated national

reality in May 2010, underthe system procured by

Comelec from Smartmatic-

TIM Corporation, a

joint venture between

Smartmatic, a London-

headquartered, Latin

American-run information

technology company, and Makati-based,

Filipino-owned Total Information

Management. The public so used to

waiting days or weeks of canvassing were

astounded when results were speedily

canvassed and widely accepted. Municipal,

provincial, and regional tallies got to the

Comelec data server within hours of

polls closing.

By midnight on Election Day, 60% of

results had been transmitted, recounted

the Comelec Advisory Council in its report

on use of the AES in the 2010 elections,

and 80% the next day. Local candidates

were proclaimed in 24 hours, and senators

within a week, the CAC added. Losers in

the presidential and vice-presidential races

Congress began. Plainly, it was night and

day vis-a-vis manual polls. As for problems,

the CAC said they were not severe enough

to allow interested parties to manipulate

the election results.

Where PCOS went

wrong. The Center for

People Empowerment in

Governance has a markedly

different view. CenPEG

recounted in its IncidentReports on the May 10,

2010 Automated Elections

PCOS malfunctions and

breakdowns, defective

memory cards (containing

operating programs),

transmission snafus and connectivity

paper, missing or misused ultraviolet

scanners, and old-fashioned voter

disenfranchisement, long queues, vote

buying and other irregularities.

The result of CenPEGs Project 3030 with

the European Union, the report wondered:

Is success measurable only by how

fast election results are which itself

is disputable? ... Speed thus became the

yardstick of success to the extent that

Speed of counting

was the yardstick

of success,' so that

many people

overlooked whatwas happening

on the ground

~ Center for PeopleEmpowermentfor Governance

Making every vote count



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many people overlooked what

really happened on the ground.

Indeed, the very speed of results

transmission raised questions:

Until now, Comelec cannot

explain convincingly how and

why election results reached

national canvassing servers so

fast starting even an hour

voting when the automated

election system at the precinct

level was hounded by technical

breakdowns and irregularities.

In fact, argued CenPEG,

minimum technical and legal

safeguards were set aside,

raising serious questions

about the integrity of results.

Among these failings were the

absence of an independent

source code review, inadequate

voter education and poll watchtraining, poor estimation of

the country's infrastructures

to support a modern election

technology, absence of

preparation and tendency to

short-cut requirements, delayed

or last-hour issuance of Comelec

general instructions, and

inadequate mock elections and

PCOS defenders would note that

some leaders of CenPEG, like

former Philippine Computer

Society head Augusto Lagman,

who subsequently served as

Comelec commissioner until

recently, had lobbied for the rival

Open Election System.

June-October 1993

Under Chairman Christian Monsods 1992

modernization program, the Commission on Elections

obtained advice from international consultants and

viewed possible technologies abroad, to shortlist election

automation options

January-December 1994

Anticipating the passage of a poll automation law,

Comelec made preparations for automation, including

bidding for equipment, but no legislation was passed

June 7, 1995

President Fidel Ramos signs RA 8046 authorizing pilot-

testing of automation

Muslim Mindanao elections in 1996

June 11, 1996

Voters Registration Act of 1996 mandated a

computerized and updated voters lists

September 9, 1996

Automated ARMM elections were declared successful.

In October-December, the equipment was demonstrated

nationwide

December 22, 1997

Election Modernization Act (RA 8436) enacted,

authorizing the Commission on

Elections to use an automated election system (AES) in

the May 1998 polls

November-December 2000

Comelec conducted bidding for Automated Counting

and Consolidation of Results Systems (Accors) project,

but the bidding failed

July 23, 2001State of the Nation Address, President

Gloria Arroyo released 2 billion for election automation

THE LONCo

GMA



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ROAD TO ELECTION AUTOMATIONpiled from timelines by ABS-CBN and

deal and 2010 elections

October 29, 2002

Comelec set modernization of 2004 elections in

Resolution No. 02-170

January and February 2003

President Arroyo released a total of 3 billion for

2004 election automation

April 15, 2003

Comelec awarded 1-billion 2004 automation

August 5, 2003

Philippines petitions the Supreme Court to void

the contract

January 13, 2004

contract, citing clear violation of law and ... reckless

disregard of [Comelecs] own bidding rules and

Ombudsman to investigate the deal.

June 30, 2006

After repeated prodding by the Supreme Court,

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez recommended

against

members of the Comelec bidding committee that

handled it, and referred Commissioner Resurreccion

Borra to Congress for possible impeachment

September 27, 2006

Ombudsman Gutierrez absolves all respondents

cause, prompting nine senators to petition the High

Court the next month to annul the Ombudsmans

ruling and cite her in contempt

January 23,

2007

Congress

enacts Election

Automation Law of 2007

(RA 9369) mandating the automation of the

2010 elections

August 11, 2008

AES was pilot-tested in the Autonomous

Region in Muslim Mindanao, with positive

assessments from ARMM voters and the Comelec

Advisory Council

March 24, 2009

RA 9295 allocated 11.3 billion for election

automation

June 10, 2009

After disqualifying seven bidders, reconsidering four,

and testing equipment, Comelec awarded the AES

deal to Smartmatic-TIM, which put in the lowest bid

of 7.2 billion

May 2010

After testing glitches were addressed with

new computer memory cards, the Precinct

Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines are

used in the May 2010 national elections, with

widespread acceptance by the electorate and

transmission of results by a cheating syndicate

with hidden machines, but the Congress report

on the 2010 polls declared there was no failure

of elections, while urging that all the loopholes

in the PCOS and the automated election

the current provider or by another more

assiduous supplier.




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OES would retain manual voting and

counting, but use computers to encode and

transmit precinct results via Internet and

cellphone to canvassing centers and the

Comelec, while posting scanned election

returns online.

With more than 80,000 encoders plus

hundreds of thousands of ERs online, OES

proponents argued, massive fraud would behard to commit and even harder to conceal

under the far less costly P4-billion system.

And there would be less dependence

on complex, failure-prone software and

hardware. But Comelec chose the PCOS

system, which uses optical mark readers

(OMR) to count votes indicated with

shadings in multiple choice ballots.

What risks to address. Other entities

with no rival system to advocate have

also assessed PCOS risks.

Assessments, a security, crisis management

and business consultancy, produced a

risk assessment of the system in April

2010. PSA cited lack of testing, unclear

storage facilities, undisclosed source code

needed to verify programming, power

shortages and transmission glitches, and

some unclear or doubtful arrangements

for digital keys, machine transport, ballotprinting, staff training, and voter lists (see

pages 3-7 in PSA report). Not to mention

hackers and jammers.

San Beda law professor Farrahmila A. Mala

and Centro Escolar professor Rafael D.

Department made a detailed studyof legal,

technical and operational aspects of the

AES. The report, published inLumina, the

journal of Bicols Holy Name University,

PCOS voting and counting, outlined by former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman



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in March last year, looked closely at how

the system and its countless procedures

and safeguards complied with provisions

of the 2007 election automation law, as

well as upright voting and canvassingstandards. Contingency and failure

measures were also explained, as well as

the crucial random manual

district needed to check if

the system worked.

The Consortium on

Electoral Reforms, under

election advocate Ramon

Casiple of the Institute

for Political and Electoral

Reforms, undertook its own

monitoring and assessment

program, Bantay Eleksyon

2010, with assistance from

the EU, U.S. Agency for

International Development

(USAID), the U.N.Democracy Fund, and the

International Foundation

for Electoral Systems.

,

Successful Automated

Election System Leads to

an Essentially Fair and

Free 2010 Philippine

Elections, provided acomprehensive analysis

and reporting of PCOS as

designed and in action,

plus the historical,

legislative, political and

procurement aspects

of AES and the 2010

elections.

The CER report detailed

problems in various areas:

failure of elections in certain areas, some

ballot rejection, absence of secrecy folders,

the use of different kinds of thermal paper

and ballots, a citizens watchdog report of

7,500 PCOS machines failing to transmitresults (almost one-tenth of the total),

and nearly 800 incidents involving the

PCOS machine components, as presented in UP College of Law-CenPEG 2009 report


From Tanggulang Demokrasya presentation on alleged PCOS fraud in 2010 elections



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counting devices, including 457 monitored

by Bantay Eleksyon. Perhaps the most

however, were the delays and defective

procedures in the random manual

audits to check PCOS performance and

counting accuracy.

Computerized cheating conspiracy?

Strict implementation of PCOS safeguards

and standards is needed to block possible

computerized cheating conspiracies,

Back in 2004, the Supreme Court voided the Mega

Fernando Capalla again hailed the Commission

on Elections to the High Court over its decision to

buy the 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS)

vote counting machines. But this time, the Comelec

got its way.

Last year Comelec asked Congress for 10.4 billion

so it could get a new automated election system

(AES) for the 2013 elections. But it got 7.96 billion.

possibility of acquiring or leasing a new AES from a

new provider. So on March 30, 2012, the Comelec

purchase of the PCOS machines and all related

systems used in the 2010 elections for 1.83 billion,after the 7.2 billion rental paid in 2010 was deducted

from the purchase price.

Court seeking to nullify the Comelecs exercise of the

1) the option period provided for in the AES

had already lapsed and, thus, could no longerbe extended, such extension being prohibited by

the contract

2) the extension of the option period

and the exercise of the option without

competitive public bidding contravene

the provisions of RA 9184

and defects of the PCOS machines,

the Comelec purchased the same in

contravention of the standards laid down in RA 9369.

reading of the other provisions of the AES contract

would show that the parties are given the right toamend the contract which may include the period

no prohibition on the extension of the period, provided

that the contract is still effective.

On the second issue (lack of public bidding), Justice

Abads concurring opinion is enlightening: Petitioners

are of course also right that COMELECs purchase

public bidding where other parties can make offers tosupply COMELEC with the equipment and systems

that it needs for the 2013 elections. But R.A. 9184,

The Comelec-Smartmatic buy-one-take-one deal

Programmer Clinton Curtis testifying onYouTube

By Atty. John Carlo Gil M. Sadian



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the Government Procurement Act, allows certain

exceptions to such requirement. It provides

that the procuring government agency may,

to any of the alternative methods of procurement,

including negotiated procurement, provided the

procuring agency ensures the most advantageous

price for the government.

Justice Peralta, in the Decision itself, believed that

dispensing with public bidding is proper considering

that the new lease contract with Smartmatic is

more advantageous to the Comelec, because the

7,191,484,739.48 rentals paid for the lease of goods

and purchase of services under the AES contract

was considered part of the purchase price. For the

Comelec to own the subject goods, it was required to

pay only 2,130,635,048.15. If the Comelec did not

exercise the option, the rentals already paid wouldjust be one of the government expenses for the past

election and would be of no use to future elections.

Justice Peralta added that Assuming that the

would again conduct another public bidding for

the AES for the 2013 elections with its available

budget of 7 billion. Considering that the said

amount is the available fund for the whole election

process, the amount for the purchase or lease

7 billion.

again participate in the public bidding and could win

acquiring the same PCOS machines but now

at a higher price.

the PCOS), the Court gave weight to the Comelec

and Smartmatics agreement that the latter would

and software to make sure that the subject goodsare in working condition to ensure a free, honest, and

credible elections. Lets hope they do.

which happen even in advanced countries

like the U.S. (seeMark Miller andClinton

Curtis videos). In the 2010 polls, a self-

proclaimed whistleblower nicknamed

Koala Bear for his mask, alleged in

TV interviews a widespread conspiracy

using PCOS machines in a hidden

location (see whistleblower video).

That focused suspicion on 60 PCOS

machines found in Antipolo, which

Comelec then brought to the Senate

for investigation.

Mark Crispin Miller YouTube




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Equally pointed are the allegations of

Tanggulang Demokrasya, a civil society

group founded a year after the May 2010

elections. TanDem groups a diverse crop

of public-interest entities including theKapatiran Party. It believes there was

massive computerized fraud in 2010,

perpetrated by deliberately disabling digital

signatures

needed

to verify

transmitted

election

results. Once

that signature

requirement

was waived,

there was

no way for

canvassing

servers to

screen out any

bogus results

being sent in. Last July, TanDem called for a

probe of the alleged anomalies, to no avail.

In the weeks after the May 2010 polls, the

House of Representatives Committee on

Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, chaired

by then Congressman Teodoro Locsin Jr.,

investigated the claim of electronic fraud and

PCOS manipulation. Locsins Chairmans

Report stressed that despite AES problems,there was no failure of elections.

But the House committee admonished:

Before the next automated election,

all the loopholes in the PCOS and the

automated election process should be

provider or by another more assiduous

supplier. If not, a reversion to manual

elections with heightened vigilance by

organizations

like PPCRV

[Parish

Pastoral

Council for

Responsible

Voting] and

NAMFREL

[National

Movement

for Free

Elections]

would

probably

yield more

credible and accurate results.

In other words, Locsins report said without

proper PCOS integrity mechanisms and

procedures, manual voting with citizens

pollwatch would be better than automated

elections. What those safeguards and other

measures should be, including what voters

should do to guard the peoples sovereign

will, shall be the subject of a future report bylongtime Namfrel stalwart Zandro Rapadas.

Self-styled whistleblower, nicknamed Koala Bear by

media, claiming 2010 fraud YouTube



Documents

PCOS: Making Sure Our Votes Count by Ricardo Saludo