The Philippines: Midterm Elections 2013 2

Smartmatic in the Philippines 4

General characteristics of the project 5

Scope 5

Technology 5

Services 6

What others said about the elections 7

Related news 8

About Smartmatic 15

Table of contents

The Philippines: Midterm Elections 2013

On May 13, the 2013 Midterm Elections were held in the Philippines. These elections are called such because the officials elected will be sworn midway the term of the current president.

Filipino voters elected 12 Senators, 229 district members of the House of Representatives, 80 Provincial Governors, 80 Provincial Vice Governors, 766 members of the Provincial Legislature, 138 City Mayors, 138 City Vice Mayors, 1,532 members of the City Council, 1,496 Municipal Mayors, 1,496 Municipal Vice Mayors, and 11,972 members of the Municipal Council.

In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), one Regional Governor, one Regional Vice Governor, and 24 Regional Assemblymen were elected. In addition, party lists were also present in the contests.

In only 10 hours, 766,672,141 votes were cast in the Philippines to elect 18,022 national and local positions.

President S. Aquino marks his paper ballot (ABS-CBNnews)

President S. Aquino introduces the marked ballot in the machine (ABS-CBNnews)

Ex First Lady and member of the House of Representatives, Imelda Marcos, casts her vote in Ilocos Norte (ABS-CBNnews)

Vice president Jejomar Binay votes in Makati (ABS-CBNnews)

Phillipine boxing icon and Sarangani representative, Manny Pacquiao, casts his ballot (ABS-CBNnews)

Smartmatic in the Philippines

Following the successful May 2010 General Elections, the Republic of the Philippines was set to conduct another massive automated election project – the Midterm Elections of May 2013.

Once again, Smartmatic played a vital role in a Philippine election by providing technology and services to contribute with the overall efficiency and transparency of the process.

In 2012 the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) purchased from Smartmatic the 82,000 voting machines that leased and used to great success in 2010. Those same machines, were deployed in most of the 7,000 islands comprising the archipelago nation for the midterm elections. In only 10 hours, 766,672,141 votes were cast to elect 18,022 national and local posts.

Smartmatic was contracted to set up and run the National Support Center (NSC), which is the country-wide headquarters mandated to render technical assistance to each component of the elections. The NSC featured a 600-seat call center and was powered by Smartmatic’s proprietary E-Day Monitor, which was crucial to the smooth and well-coordinated end-to-end execution of the 2013 Philippine elections.

Smartmatic also supplied the compact flash cards for the voting machines, and the modems to transmit data from precincts to tallying centers.

Scope

The electoral platform used had the following extent:

80,916 voting machines deployed over 7,000 islands.

1,684 totalization and consolidation servers and printers.

164,400 compact flash memory cards for secure storage of election data.

Over 36,000 schools functioned as voting centers, all of which were first surveyed with state-of-the-art equipment to determine quality of network signals, power availability, and other logistical concerns.

600 tech support agents located in the National Support Center during Election Day for monitoring the entire process and for remote support to the technicians in the field.

48,000 modems and 46,000 SIM cards used for direct transmission of election returns.

5,000 mobile satellite antennas (BGAN) and 680 VSATs deployed nationwide for transmission of results in the polling and totalization centers with little or no cellular coverage.

2 Data Centers created to backup nationwide results with redundancy capabilities.

5,853 spare machines for contingencies.

Technology

What follows are descriptions of the technologies that were used in the process:

E-Day Monitor: Our solution to manage all logistical operations in real time, from resource planning, dispatch of electoral materials and incident reporting to technical support. E-Day Monitor integrates call centers seamlessly, keeping everyone in charge connected and in control.

REIS: A safe tallying, monitoring and awarding system used for the reception of electoral data in a decentralized and hierarchical scheme. In the Philippines, deployment spanned 1,700 geographic locations.

SAES-1800: Optical scanner unit designed to register and tally the votes marked in electoral ballots, with maximum security, exactness and auditability. It is capable of functioning amidst limited power availability.

Data Centers: Conceived with a fail-safe, efficient, and secure design that allows monitoring of the platform and providing help desk services in real-time to COMELEC, the political actors, the press and various observers.

General characteristics of the project

Online Results Web System: Solution aimed at publishing the official results on the Internet in real time, to enhance the transparency and auditability of the electoral process.

Transmission Platform: Securing the reliable telecommunication services for the transmission of electoral data, through the integration of resources of the main telecommunications companies in the Philippines.

Services

Smartmatic supplied integral technological, logistical and support services, including:

Hardware Acceptance Testing (HAT). This involved the physical testing and acceptance of a specific hardware to validate that the goods being delivered were in good working condition and in compliance with the required specifications of the client. A signed document was generated between the supplier and the client once the hardware acceptance was executed.

Technician Training. Conducted to orient technicians on how to operate the voting machines and the totalization and consolidation system including their peripherals. Operational contingency protocols were also included as part of the orientation.

Transmission Services. Smartmatic complies with all the secure transmission requirements for the successful use of the system. It integrated both the machines and the REIS totalization system, with the possibility of transmitting election results through different means: fixed phone line (DSL), cellular phone or modem GPRS/EDGE/3G/4G technologies, and BGAN and VSAT satellite connectivity.

National Support Center. The NSC provided remote support to field personnel in case that technical or operational issues occurred that were unresolved in the field level. It also involved monitoring the status of delivery and the operation of all polling and tallying centers, including checking the attendance of technicians and supervisors.

What others said about the elections

“By all accounts, this second automated election has proceeded in a satisfactory manner, with the system and the vast majority of machines working as they were intended…” | Edwin Lacierda, Presidential Spokesperson. 05.14.2013

“We were encouraged to see so many Philippine citizens expressing their views and differences during the campaigns and making their voices heard at the polls today. It was another reminder that citizens of both the Philippines and the United States share the core value of participatory democracy” | U.S. Embassy in a statement. 05.14.2013

“Clean, honest election always reassures investors on the stability of the country” | Melito S. Salazar, president of the Management Association of the Philippines. 05.13.2013

“Up until the last hour before the polls open at 7:00 am, our confi-dence remains high that this national electoral exercise of 2013 shall emerge as the most peaceful polls ever in the history of Philippine elections" | Alan Purisima, PNP chief Director General. 05.13.2013

"The long voting lines, the hard work of our teachers, elections and security personnel, and the constant vigilance of all are indeed testaments to the Filipino's high regard for the democratic process and strong desire to move the country forward" | Statement from Makati Business Club. 05.13.2013

Successful conduct of election seen to propel growth, inspire investors | 05.14.2013The business community yesterday said that the successful midterm elections would further strengthen the country’s economy to higher growth path. Melito S. Salazar, president of the Management Association of the Philippines, noted that “clean, honest election always reassures investors on the stability of the country.”http://www.mb.com.ph/article.php?aid=11843&sid=2&subid=80#.UZJHk_GdZZM

Roxas: PH 'real winner' in election | 05.14.2013Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas congratulated the nation who, he believes, is the real winner in the recent midterm elections (…) and commented that the 2013 elections was quieter, orderly and truthful compared to the 2007 and 2010 elections.http://www.rappler.com/nation/29193-roxas-midterm-elections-ph-winner

Malacanang satisfied with conduct of 2013 midterm elections | 05.14.2013 “By all accounts, this second automated election has proceeded in a satisfactory manner, with the system and the vast majority of machines working as they were intended. While there were isolated incidents of violence and equally isolated hitches in the voting process, our institutions—from the COMELEC to its deputized agencies—volunteers for poll-watching, media, and the public came together and did their utmost to ensure free, fair, and credible elections,” Lacierda said. http://www.pia.gov.ph/news/index.php?article=1781368514309

Related news

Critics will have to look elsewhere | 05.14.2013The incidence of human error in the manual system is far greater than in any automated count (…). The benefit of getting results faster and the improbability of the machines being compromi-sed en masse far outweigh the hiccups encountered in the automation process. http://www.malaya.com.ph/index.php/special-features/editorial/30880-critics-will-have-to-look-elsewhere

Editorial - Improving the system | 05.14.2013By Philippine standards, yesterday’s vote was generally peaceful and orderly, which is good for the country. Every electoral exercise should be better than the previous one. In 2010 the nation pulled off the first-ever fully automated elections, with the winner in the presidential race announced just a few hours after the polling centers closed. Yesterday the problems associated with precinct clustering in 2010, which resulted in waiting times of up to five hours, were largely gone.http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2013/05/14/941836/editorial-improving-system

Teachers found random manual audit exhausting | 05.14.2013Public school teachers tapped to do the random manual audit of ballots cast to the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines on Monday night found it very exhausting and expres-sed the hope that voting does not go back to the old system. "We hope that it should not go back to the old system of manual voting and counting because it is tasking and exhausting," said the teachers belonging to the committee created to do the random manual count. They said that what they were doing was like going back to what they used to do in the past elections before automation.http://balita.ph/2013/05/14/teachers-found-random-manual-audit-exhausting/

US commends Philippine mid-term polls | 05.13.2013The Embassy of the United States commended the Filipinos for exercising democracy in today’s mid-term elections. “We were encouraged to see so many Philippine citizens expressing their views and differences during the campaigns and making their voices heard at the polls today. It was another reminder that citizens of both the Philippines and the United States share the core value of participatory democracy,” said the U.S. Embassy in a statement.http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/05/13/13/us-commends-philippine-mid-term-polls

PNP claims most peaceful elections | 05.13.2013"Up until the last hour before the polls open at 7:00 am today, our confidence remains high that this national electoral exercise of 2013 shall emerge as the most peaceful polls ever in the history of Philippine elections," PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima said.http://ph.news.yahoo.com/pnp-claims-most-peaceful-elections-001203325.html

Foreign observers watching Philippine elections | 05.13.2013Thirty foreign election observers are in the Philippines to keep a watch on Monday’s electoral process, particularly in six areas with a history of election-related violence. “They are interested on how these local electoral contests will play out three years into the term of President [Benigno] Aquino [III], who himself won the 2010 elections under the banner of political reforms,” Arnold Tarrobago, national co-ordinator of Compact of Peaceful and Democratic Elections (Compact), said.http://www.emirates247.com/news/philippines/foreign-observers-watching-philippine-elections-2013-05-13-1.506313

Automated polls here to stay | 05.13.2013By tomorrow evening, or 48 hours after the voting on Monday, we will already know the winners of the senatorial and local elections, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec). That follows the same trend during the first automated nationwide elections in 2010, a far cry from previous manual elections whose results took many days to determine with finality.With this second automated political exercise, we can already conclude that manual elections, with their vulnerability to dagdag-bawas and other forms of electoral fraud, are a thing of the past. http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/news/opinion/13427-automated-polls-here-to-stay

Poll winners known in 48 hours–Comelec | 04.11.2013The winners in the May 13 elections will likely be known within 48 hours after the close of voting, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec). “Maybe in 48 hours, more or less, we’ll know the winners at the national level,” said Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes during a press briefing Wednesday. He expressed confidence that in the municipal and city levels, just like what happened in 2010, winners will be known in 24 hours. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/388753/poll-winners-known-in-48-hours-comelec

Comelec: Poll preparations almost complete | 04.06.2013With still more than a month to go before the elections on May 13, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is almost done with all preparations for the coming polls. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said the poll body is nearing completion of the preparations and is now in the “implementing stage.”http://www.philstar.com/election-2013/photos/2013/04/06/927495/comelec-poll-preparations-almost-complete

Comelec says it´s all systems go | 04.06.2013It’s all systems go for the 2013 automated elections, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Comelec chair Sixto Brillantes said they were practically done with all the preparations for the May 13 polls. “We don’t want to boast but we are practically finished with our local preparations. We are already in the implementation stage,” Brillantes told reporters Friday during an inspection at the Comelec’s Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) assembly facility in Cabuyao, Laguna.http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/385867/comelec-says-its-all-systems-go

Elections 2013 Checklist | 04.02.2013Easter has always been something of a milestone in the election calendar. After Easter, the approach of the national and local elections—including the gubernatorial polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao this year—just seems to speed up tremendously. And so now we are suddenly confronted with the fact that the polls are just a little over a month away. Time, in other words, for voters to take stock of just how ready they are to face the ballot.http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/news/opinion/11508-elections-2013-checklist

Comelec launches PCOS demo center | 03.27.2013The Commission on Elections (Comelec) launched a Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine demonstration center at its main office in Intramuros, Manila on Wednesday morning. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said anyone can come in on any working day to familiarize themselves with the operation of a PCOS machine.http://www.solarnews.ph/featuredspecials/election2013/2013/03/27/comelec-launches-pcos-demo-center#.UZEbeP

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Comelec satisfied with field testing of ballot transmission | 01.27.2013The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is satisfied with the results of yesterday’s field testing conducted in nine areas across the country to check the electronic transmission of ballots for the May 13 polls. “It’s successful. This field testing is very important because it will give us an idea of what we are going to encounter when actual election comes. So far the results are good,” said Comelec spokesman James Jimenez.http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/01/27/901529/comelec-satisfied-field-testing-ballot-transmission

About Smartmatic

By helping governments become more transparent and more efficient, our technology benefits societies around the world. Our automated approach to elections makes it easier for nations to let people decide their leaders securely.

With over 2.2 billion ballots cast and counted, no other company has as much experience of automating and improving every stage of an election, from registration through to results publication. Having deployed more than 500,000 machines is a vivid testimony of the level of trust and satisfaction we have built with clients in the US, Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean have bestowed upon us.

Our headquarters are in London and we employ over 600 professionals in offices around the world.