The right to public information suffered with Comelec’s lack of
transparency. The poll body failed – and continues to fail – to meet the
transparency requirements of the election system by its intransigent and
unexplained refusal to deny citizens’ groups access to vital election
documents. Its lack of transparency left majority of the electorate
misinformed and uninformed, duped by the illusion about automated election
modernizing democracy and weeding out fraud.
By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
October 9, 2010
The advocacy for credible elections in the Philippines has been daunting –
but also rewarding. One of the biggest hurdles in this advocacy is
engaging the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the country’s prime
election manager, so as to make sure that its claim of making the recent
automated election transparent, credible, and accurate works. It is the
least that can be done to ensure that the people’s sovereign will is
expressed in a country that is still struggling to make real democracy
work.
Because a modern albeit untested technology was being adopted for the May
10, 2010 election, an inevitable clash between those who aimed to enforce
it by all means based on the doctrine that the Philippines should catch up
with “modernization” and those who believe that modernizing demands
caution, rigorous testing, simulations, well-grounded certification, and a
highly-developed political culture. The new election law, RA 9369, looks
fair - and also stringent. With its technical provisions having been
proposed by IT scientists, practitioners, and tested poll watchers the law
is strong on the need for pilot tests; high standards of accuracy,
reliability, security, and transparency; and, more important, extensive
voter education and training by all election managers, inspectors, and
technicians.
As a policy research institution, CenPEG monitored the 2010 automated
election system’s implementation from the time it was “pilot tested” in
the August 2008 Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) automated
polls to its final launch last May 2010 where 17,000 elective positions,
including the presidency, were contested by about 85,000 candidates in
synchronized national and local elections. CenPEG’s election-day
monitoring reports bared widespread incidence of technical glitches,
voting machine breakdowns, transmission failures, back-up batteries
overheating, non-performing satellite transceivers, millions of voters
queuing from 3-9 hours to vote, and other irregularities. To validate the
incidence reports, researchers farmed out to the provinces to conduct case
studies and interview key informants from the local Comelec, poll
inspectors, hired IT technicians, poll watchers, voters, candidates, and
officials from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Accounts
of election glitches were reconstructed; official papers, documents, and
evidences were collected for analysis.
Information withheld
Research has a strategic value for national development and public
affairs. It seeks out facts; facts are sourced through various means. When
information is being withheld by official sources, questions are left
unanswered and truth is compromised. In the course of doing research,
CenPEG came face-to-face with top Comelec officials and advisers where
simple technical questions elicited no response or mere quizzical stares,
and critical inquiries are dismissed as untimely or premature. Research
curiosity turned into inquisitiveness, and criticalness into persistence
in unearthing more facts. But Comelec behavior turned from stonewalling to
labeling and agitated anger. Intolerant of contrary views and unable to
produce information – such as the vital election source code which the law
says should be reviewed by independent groups – Comelec officials also
became more evasive and stalling. Illusions replaced transparency as
voters and media were told to “trust the machine” or, failing so, to leave
fate to God once an “unforeseen election disaster” strikes. The automated
election was touted as a “dream poll” and a medium for “modernizing
democracy” – all-too familiar marketing tools.
One could detect a myopic belief that importing a voting machine is
already modernization when modernization itself is a process of scientific
development and a high socio-political culture that is able to produce
indigenous modern technology. Worse, the automated system was equated with
clean elections when, in fact, regardless of automation traditional fraud
in a country like the Philippines has the power to hijack the voter’s
sovereign will – and the country’s future. Who controls the machines,
controls the vote. Indeed it was disturbing to hear a top Comelec official
who, in trying to allay fears of a source code manipulation, went on to
prescribe an “anti-virus” antidote.
Fortunately, in many instances, CenPEG received information from
unofficial sources, high and low – slipped from under the door, from
anonymous informants, emails, and courier.
Precisely due to ill-preparedness, the failure to meet deadlines such as
machine manufacturing, ballot printing, and voter education redounded to
cutting corners and foregoing other critical requirements. Critical
security, transparency, and verifiability features that would have
guaranteed some credibility and accuracy to election results were either
ignored or removed. Results of failed or inadequate mock elections and
field tests with a clear warning that Smartmatic, the technology provider,
had a lot of catching up were all but ignored. By the time the disastrous
final testing and sealing (FTS) of the machines happened on May 3, time
was slipping away as the countdown to election day was drawing to a close.
In the end, the major structural flaws were disturbing, among them: The
required change in management was wanting as shown in the failure to make
implementation compliant with the law; in the lack of systematic data on
the availability of infrastructures that will support poll automation
(power supply, road and water networks, telecommunication connectivity of
the voting centers); poor training extended to members of the Board of
Election (BEI) inspectors; no effective system in crowd control under the
precinct clustering; and lack of competent IT technicians (even non-ITs
were hired indiscriminately).
CenPEG report
In the synopsis of its final report which it presented in a post-election
summit (PES) last Oct. 5 (dubbed October PES) organized by AES Watch,
CenPEG revealed: There was a high incidence of technical hitches,
blunders, voting procedural errors, and other operational failures
throughout the country. These can be attributed to the defective automated
system adopted by Comelec - the lack of safeguards, security measures, as
well as timely and effective continuity/contingency measures (software,
hardware, technologies, and other system components) that proved damaging
to the accuracy, security, and reliability of election returns. Comelec’s
seeming fixation for “speed” ran the risks of removing vital mechanisms,
short-cutting procedures, glossing over voter’s rights and the principle
of “secret voting, public counting” and, inevitably, bypassing strict
constitutional and legal requirements. Stripped of its vital organs, the
automated election system (AES) that was harnessed for the May 10 polls
was not only vulnerable to various glitches and management failures but
also favorable for electronic cheating including possible pre-loading of
election results. (Read “The CenPEG Report on the Many 10, 2010 Automated
Elections: A Synopsis,” www.eu-cenpeg.com and www.cenpeg.org)
Indeed, several of the 100 election protests filed with Comelec so far
involved alleged electronic cheating such as switching of CF cards,
unexplained sudden stoppage of transmissions, ballot pre-shading, and
other reasons. The report also dared Comelec to explain why it was showing
“fast” election results at its national canvassing monitors when delays,
interruptions, and glitches were happening in many clustered precincts
nationwide.
The challenge of establishing solid proofs and empirical data to verify
automated cheating – including a possible pre-loading - has been impeded
by the national poll body’s unexplained refusal to disclose vital election
documents – all 21 of them – that were long requested by CenPEG and other
citizens’ groups. The disclosure of these documents should help validate
Comelec’s claims of election “success” and dispel increasing allegations
of electronic rigging. However, the more intransigent Comelec is in
refusing to make this public information available the stronger public
concerns there will be that the poll body is hiding something.
Accountability and policy of exclusion
Under the circumstances, Comelec should be made accountable for making
decisions that are inconsistent with the RA 9369 requirements involving
“the use of an automated election system that will ensure the secrecy and
sanctity of the ballot and all election, consolidation and transmission
documents in order that the process shall be transparent and credible and
that the results shall be fast, accurate and reflective of the genuine
will of the people.” The poll body also failed to adopt “the most suitable
technology of demonstrated capability taking into account the situation
prevailing in the area and the funds available for the purpose."
The procurement law and RA 9369 should be upheld to test Comelec’s
accountability with regard to the still-questionable contract with the
foreign consortium Smartmatic; on the real ownership of the vital source
code, programs, and systems; the absence of public bidding and other
requirements in other transactions (logistics, voter education, secrecy
folders, UV scanners, etc.). Comelec should explain why it chose to
outsource the election automation when the Constitution and RA 9369
explicitly provide for the use of Filipino science and technology and the
adoption of a technology appropriate for the country’s “actual
conditions.” Was the country’s sovereignty compromised when Comelec
virtually abdicated its responsibility as election manager in favor of a
foreign company? Were the voters’ sovereign will expressed freely in the
absence of features that guarantee secret voting and public counting,
verifiability, and auditability – not to mention the fact that election
results may have been tainted by the absence of accuracy and security
safeguards?
Moreover, the right to public information suffered with Comelec’s lack of
transparency. The poll body failed – and continues to fail – to meet the
transparency requirements of the election system by its intransigent and
unexplained refusal to deny citizens’ groups access to vital election
documents. Its lack of transparency left majority of the electorate
misinformed and uninformed, duped by the illusion about automated election
modernizing democracy and weeding out fraud.
To quote the president of TI-Philippines, Judge Dolores Espanol, until
CenPEG and AES Watch publicized their appraisal of what happened on
election day the truth about the automated election system dysfunction was
hidden by Comelec from the public. “The Comelec has been the most
un-transparent in the whole election exercise by not disclosing vital
election documents,” she said. Some observers have described this lack of
transparency as a “criminal act.”
Aggravating this lack of transparency is a policy of exclusion maintained
against critics from all walks of life including ITs, academics, poll
watchdogs, and people’s organizations. Such policy of exclusion only
exposed Comelec’s closed-door policy against public engagement that is
contrary to the very Constitution the poll body promised to uphold – that
governance is a partnership between the state and “civil society”, of all
stakeholders.
Nevertheless, the battle for the election source code scored a victory
when, on Sept. 21, the Supreme Court (SC) in its ruling on CenPEG’s
petition for mandamus directed the Comelec to release the source code for
independent review by the petitioner and other independent parties. David
A. Wagner, the principal investigator of the source code review for
California and computer science professor at the University of
California-Berkeley, congratulated CenPEG for the victory but asserted, as
the SC decision says, that its release should be “unrestricted.”
The SC’s favorable ruling on the source code review is a breakthrough -
the first for a country in the whole world. On this case, the high court’s
action on CenPEG's request for mandamus is a distinct service to the
Filipino people's quest for a democratic and credible election.
And if there is anything positive about the whole exercise it is that it
forced millions of people, including teachers, voters, citizens groups,
and poll watchers to intervene and push through with the election.
Reference:
The Board of Editors
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
3F CSWCD Bldg., University of the Philippines Diliman 1101 Quezon City,
Philippines
TelFax +63-2 9299526
E-mail: cenpeg@cenpeg.org; info@cenpeg.org
http://www.cenpeg.org
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