Tag: May 2010 elections

Election law & election campaigns, Original videos photos music-slides, The President

The worst did not happen: Time for our thank-you- prayers (& to Party!)

Time for our thank-you-prayers (and to party!)

The worst did not happen: there was no “wholesale electronic cheating”, no massive disenfranchisement; the doomsdaysayers-who- did-not- suggest- any –countermeasures and the fearless forecasters who gave last election’s same forecast, should consider a career-shift; Smartmatic on the other hand should still be held accountable for the last-minute snafu and the near-cardiac arrest it subjected the Filipino nation, the Comelec should still consider proceeding against the ten per cent purchase price of the contract as penalty against Smartmatic, i’m sure there’s some contractual stipulation there against last-minute breaches of procedure and putting the beneficiary of the contract on the brink of disaster (Comelec can use the money to further study how to improve the automated system, or better yet: give the money to the teachers and PPCRV: Teachers!-Bonus! PPCRV-Research-grants!)…and my broadband speed and whatchmacall  are back: small — miniscule– sacrifices.

Perhaps, the analog “dagdag-bawas” cheating criminal syndicate did not have enough time to figure out the new encryption of the re-configured compact flashdrives; perhaps, the eleventh-hour snafu threw the cheating gangs into confusion and frustration as well – just when they thought they had figured out the algorithms, the software of each drive was re-configured (replaced!); throwing everybody — including Malacañang, top election lawyers, the Garci special ops, and also Comelec into confusion.

And while Smartmatic’s Asia-Pacific company president Cesar Flores in his Venezuelan accent, double-rr’s double-ee’s,  could resort to clichés in their defense “Eet waas eh blessing in deesguise” (it was a blessing in disguise), “Hah ken you arrgue ehgenst sekcces” (How can you argue against success) “Ohls well that ends well” (All’s well that ends well) “Derr was method in ahrr medness” (There was method in our madness), — and while he is safe from reconsidering his day job and auditioning for a lead role in an ABS-CBN-produced new Mexican telenovela — we should still proceed against Smartmatic’s ten per cent (that’s still 10% of 7.2 billion), this is no way to run an election – on a cardiac finish! (Pay up, guys.)

For future elections, the analog dagdag-bawas cheating syndicates have three years, they have time – they will wisen up.

So should we.

And for that, serious study should be given to restoring or activating the security features such as a monitor or display of  the vote cast (even the most  antiquated ATM gives you a display or receipt for your minimum  one hundred pesos), or a paper receipt/record of the vote cast, to be returned and put inside the ballot box upon exit of the voter, ultraviolet security markings, voter verification system, etc.

Because we might have used up our quota on good luck, blessings, serendipity, graces, and good karma.

Election law & election campaigns

Right to inspect & test the PCOS & flashcard on election day

Photo of Del derived from a group photo by Chona Sebastian, lit & cropped, published by Flow Yoga QC

May 10, 2010 is also the time to be outspoken and vocal: the law allows the political parties and the Citizens’ Arm to demand (well, you can be nice and charming at the same time, firm while making your demand)  that the counting machine (precinct count optical scan) be tested on the day of the election and right before the  official voting starts;  this is in addition to the testing that is being done on the re-configured compact flash drives today.

[For a background, as everyone knows by now (after the Smartmatic-Comelec snafu that’s threatening to hijack the elections), the program in the compact flashcard is configured to read shades and spaces: black shades and white spaces; not letters. But somebody changed the single-spaced layout of the second page of the ballot and made it double-spaced, maybe for aesthetic reasons, to fill up the page or “close the page”, to use newseditors’ and layout artists’ parlance. Names of candidates on the second page were laid out in double space instead of single space, so the machine read the spaces-in-between as zero vote for the second-named candidate, whose name on the other hand appeared on the third line (because it’s double-spaced). Smartmatic and Comelec reported today that they have successfully re-configured all 76,000 compact flashcards and these are now being transported nationwide, they’re skipping however the “Gloria-Garci territories” of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte for security reasons daw (i’ll leave that for another blog post)].

The next hurdle is to help prevent or to detect wholesale cheating through tampered compact flashcards.

Since the compact flashcard (memory card) also stores the data on the votes, it is like a virtual ballot box and election return, except that, its contents are invisible. Concerned parties are given the right to publicly inspect it by testing the device (the representative also better know what they’re looking for; by this time, seminars and workshops should have been conducted on this). This is akin to inspecting and making sure that the ballot box is empty.

Doomsdaysaying should be accompanied with measures on: what one could do to prevent doomsday, or mitigate its effect, or at least, with measures on how to document… how we’re getting killed, that is, if you are prevented from inspecting and testing the device on the day of the election and right before voting, you should raise hell – you do not know the contents of the memory card – we’re getting killed that way: You should document.

The next three days should be spent by the parties concerned (political parties and Citizens’ Arm) on making sure that their representatives at the precinct level know how to assert their rights.

At the very least, the representatives of the parties concerned at the precinct level should be provided already with a ready “spiel” so they won’t fumble when asking that the device be tested right before voting begins.

(and of course, their lawyers should be on stand-by)

Here’s what the law provides

Republic Act 9369 Automated Election Law as amended:

“Sec. 12. Section 10 of Republic Act No. 8436 is hereby amended to read as follows:

“ `Sec. 14. Examination and Testing of Equipment or Device of the AES and Opening of the Source Code for Review. – The Commission shall allow the political parties and candidates or their representatives, citizens’ arm or their representatives to examine and test.

“ `The equipment or device to be used in the voting and counting on the day of the electoral exercise, before voting starts. Test ballots and test forms shall be provided by the Commission.

” `Immediately after the examination and testing of the equipment or device, the parties and candidates or their representatives, citizens’ arms or their representatives, may submit a written comment to the election officer who shall immediately transmit it to the Commission for appropriate action.

” `The election officer shall keep minutes of the testing, a copy of which shall be submitted to the Commission together with the minutes of voting.

” `Once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof.”

Remember: this is no time to be shy.