As a staunch supporter of poll automation, I must admit I was a bit disappointed with the position taken by Committee Chairman Makati Representative Teodoro Locsin Jr. In the rather lengthy report, he basically went on to reverse his earlier support for automation. In subsequent interviews he even pointed out that he won't recommend it for future electoral exercises. My only consolation is that he at least qualified his stand by saying that he will not push for automation unless loopholes are plugged.

I would have preferred to hear Locsin giving his all out support to poll automation but then I really can't blame Locsin for having his own opinion. At least, Locsin did not go all crazy like what happened to the other Smartmatic critics out there with all their unfounded allegations.

If you're interested, here's a link to the committee report.

And here's the Inquirer.net report on Locsin's verdict:

Locsin: May polls flawed

He won’t recommend automation in 2013
By Leila B. Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:49:00 06/29/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. Monday admitted to being mistaken in his rosy outlook of electronic elections, saying that he was against employing the automated system used on May 10 in future electoral exercises unless loopholes were plugged.

Locsin is the chair of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, which on Sunday released a report based on its hearings that painted a far from ideal picture of the recently concluded automated elections.

The hearings took up the complaints of local candidates who claimed that they lost because of electoral fraud.

Interviewed over ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), Locsin said Monday that cheating done under the automated system could be untraceable, unlike in manual elections where money and hard work could uncover a fake ballot.

Despite Locsin’s statements, others stuck to their championing of the automated election system.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, an active participant in the hearings of Locsin’s committee, said that none of the allegations of fraud were backed by concrete proof.

So as far as he was concerned, automation was a success unless evidence to the contrary would crop up.

“Until that would come out, I would certainly say automation was a success despite being from the opposition,” Rodriguez said in a phone interview, noting that he was a constant presence at the committee hearings, which focused on allegations of poll fraud.

He said the P7 billion spent for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines was money well spent.

Eating own words

Locsin acknowledged that he was eating his words.

“You realize of course that I’m swallowing the words that I said over the past 12 months. I really fought for automation. Well, I’m willing to swallow my pride,” he said over ANC.

Locsin said he was mistaken when he said that the voting equipment, known as the PCOS machines, could not be manipulated.

“I would say one thing: Fortunately, a lot of people believe me and I was wrong when I was boasting that the machine cannot be rigged. There were not that many people who tried to cheat with machines but those who did knew about it, did it,” he said.

Reset PCOS to zero

Locsin said vote-rigging could have been done by resetting the PCOS machines to zero and then scanning ballots again. This was known through the explanations of Smartmatic, the technology provider of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

“They should have told me though that their machine was capable of being reset to zero. I have no idea it was that easy to do it. The reason also why none of us, including myself, ever thought about that is that the critics of automation kept focusing on other issues,” he said.

Audit logs also revealed that voting in some places began at 10 p.m., he said.

Different date

Locsin said Smartmatic’s explanation about the different date and time stamps on election returns was inadequate.

He said Smartmatic had assured him that the machine would record cheating, but then it later said that the different date and time stamps were of no moment.

If cheating was conducted, there was also active participation of the Board of Election Inspectors and the Comelec, he said.

“So I think, in the end, Director [Jose] Tolentino said it well: ‘Machines don’t cheat, it’s people who cheat and people can use the machine to cheat.’ As long as the people Comelec uses are cheaters, then they can cheat the machines,” Locsin said.

He also said cheating under automated and manual polls was very different, with manual polls providing a way to uncover concrete evidence.

“The difference between cheating in manual is that at the end of the road, if you have the money and the time, you can check whether the handwritten ballot is real or not,” he said.

Indistinguishable

“Whereas, in this kind of machine, all you have are shaded ballots. Now a shaded ballot that is falsely shaded and a shaded ballot that is genuinely shaded are indistinguishable from each other,” he added.

Locsin said that unless these concerns were addressed, he would not push for automated election in 2013.

“And my recommendation is that unless we are unable to plug all these loopholes, I would strongly discourage automated elections in 2013,” he said.

Improve transparency

Rodriguez said the same system could be used again, but with improvements for transparency added, such as projectors to show the results from the machines and the early testing of machines.

“I think we can go along with the automated system unless evidence would come out against it,” he said.

Henrietta de Villa, chair of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), also sees room for improvement in the automated polls, but she believes the 2013 elections should not revert back to manual.

“All reports from our 86 provincial coordinators said they are for the AES (automated election system) but with improvements to avoid glitches,” De Villa said.

No basis

She said there was no basis to say that there was rigged electronic cheating—that the machines were programmed to act in a malicious way.

Any shenanigan conducted could have taken place when other people stepped in to manipulate the process, she said.

De Villa lamented that 11th-hour problems in the preparations had led some to cast doubt on the integrity of the polls.

But she said that people should be wise enough to discern whether candidates’ electoral complaints were valid or not.

As we can all see, Locsin and the other personalities mentioned in that report were not at all dismissing poll automation altogether. They were merely pointing out the obvious -- that the automation of the elections in May was not perfect but that the system itself remains a viable option. The system need only be improved.

As a fan of incremental change, I have no problem with that. 

The poll body and the PCOS provider held a demonstration at the Cabuyao, Laguna warehouse where the PCOS machines are stored for safekeeping. The demonstration included a test on data transmission.

The test went smoothly, leading House committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms member Congressman Rufus Rodriguez to conclude that double transmission is not possible under Smartmatic's system. Rodriguez was a staunch critic of the automated system.

To address concerns about the compact flash cards used with the PCOS machines, four cards found in a junk shop in Cagayan de Oro were also tested. It was established that the cards transmitted data and that the information sent were consistent with what was reflected in the Comelec tally.

How those cards ended up in that junk shop is another matter, which the PNP will investigate. As to the cards in Congresswoman Annie Susano's possession, well, Committee Chairman Congressman Teodoro Locsin Junior says this issue will no longer be tackled. He says he will no longer let Susano present the cards as evidence during any hearing of his committee.

Kudos to Locsin for putting an end to that particular issue.

Incidentally, Susano, a loser in the mayoralty race in Quezon City, left the demonstration in Laguna after refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement and making some rather weird demands.

"There’s no way to hack [the results] because it is a private network [that is behind the country’s first automated elections]. The network is encrypted," Edgardo Cabarios, NTC director of common carrier and authorization department, said on Monday.

Cabarios added that even telecommunication companies, or telcos, have no knowledge of the security code of the network.

The election results will be transmitted to the central server of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), municipal canvasser, the server of the dominant minority party and that of the dominant majority party, citizens’ arm and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas.

As I wrote in a previous post, hacking the system is not as easy as some people would like us to believe. Even if it were so, there's no way hackers can get away from doing it. Just check out the security features in place:

Security Features

Bar Code. The ballot contains a bar code that guarantees the ballot’s authenticity. If the
bar code is compromised in any way, the ballot will no longer be read by the PCOS. This
will prevent the proliferation of fake ballots that could be used to pad results.

Maximum Number of Ballots. Each PCOS can only count a maximum number of
ballots equal to the number of registered voters plus the BEIs. This will prevent ballot
stuffing as the PCOS will not be able to count ballots beyond the maximum number.

Precinct Based. Since the PCOS is precinct-based, there will be no transportation of
ballots. All the ballots for a given precinct will be counted by the PCOS within the
precinct and the results transmitted directly to the central server and boards of canvassers.
This will prevent ballot snatching and ballot switching.

Paper Based. The PCOS utilizes a paper ballot, so results can be audited by opening the
ballot box and manually counting the ballots. This will be done during the random
manual audit to be conducted by the COMELEC immediately after the elections and
during electoral protests.

Optical Scan. In addition to counting the marks on the ballots, the PCOS also scans each
ballot and stores the image in memory. This provides another layer of auditability in
addition to the paper ballots. This will also ensure the ballots are not tampered with after
they have been cast.

Encryption. Transmissions of results will be encrypted using 128-bit encryption. This
means a total of 2128 possible combinations for the encryption key. A device that could
check a billion-billion keys (1018) per second would still require about 1013 years, which
is longer than the age of the universe.

Access Codes. Each PCOS operator will be given a unique access code that will allow
him/her to operate the PCOS machine. This will prevent unauthorized individuals from
operating the PCOS machines and even prevent authorized individuals from operating
other PCOS machines.

Audit Log. The PCOS machine and the consolidation and canvassing system both
maintain an immutable audit log that tracks all users and actions performed on the
system. This will enable the COMELEC to identify any perpetrators who attempt to
manipulate the system or results.

Transparency. Results will be made available immediately after they are transmitted
from the precinct to the central server. This will allow the public to track the unofficial
results in real-time. While the proclamation might take a few days due to the required
verification of the boards of canvassers, the unofficial results should be complete within a
few hours, which practically eliminates the window for manipulation.

Senatorial candidate Jose De Venecia III, who has been promoting himself as some sort of IT expert following his involvement in the ZTE deal controversy, has been pushing for a source code review. Well, here's his chance. The Commission on Eelections has agreed to have the code reviewed. De Venecia will reportedly do the test himself together with the help of IT volunteers from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsibel Voting.

De Venecia says there's no more time for a complete test and so they will just do random testing on parts of the code. Apparently, De Venecia agrees that this would be enough. This much I can glean from this quote of his:

(quote lifted from tribuneonline.org report)

"If the review and the Systest results are good, we will most likely get a decent chance for a decent elections," De Venecia said.

A PPCRV IT expert als had this to say:

PPCRV’s IT expert Drexx Lagui who was with De Venecia during the meeting revealed that they would also evaluate the report of Systest Labs on the automated election system as well as look at the voting machines’ "application logic."

The two explained that focusing on the voting will give them an idea on how the PCOS machines will count the votes.

"If the application logic is correct, one plus one is always two and not more or less," Lagui said.

Fair enough. I just hope De Venecia and company will do this test ith the best of intentions, that is to really verify that the system is good t go and not just to cast more doubt on the whole automation project.

I'll be keeping a close watch.

The law specifies that the PCOS machines should be at their designated precincts 3 days before election day. This would allow fr enough time for final testing and sealing of the machines.

Last week, the National Printing Office also completed the printing of official ballots. Printed were 50.851 million ballots. Comelec Chairman Jose Melo says this should convince more people to ignore the failure of election scenario being peddled by some groups. Even members of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Poll Automation who witnessed the official closing of the printing process acknowledged that success is more likely.

(excerpt from a manilatimes.net report)

Rep. Teodoro "Teddy Boy" Locsin of Makati City, one of the heads of the JCOC together with Sen. Francis"Chiz" Escudero, lauded the commission and Smartmatic-TIM for being one step closer to a successful automated polls.

"Critics say it could not be done and it’s been done. It’s been done well ahead of time and I am anticipating tomorrow [Saturday] they will say why did you finish ahead of time [and] what did you do in the middle of the night? You can never satisfy them," Locsin said, adding that a failure of elections is now near to impossible.

Here's an interview of Rep. Locsin over at ANC.

Considering these milestones, Comelec has announced that it is already 95% ready for the automated election.

Here's the report from the Philippine Star:

Comelec enters passwords for automated system
By Mayen Jaymalin The Philippine Star, April 21, 2010

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday took the first step to thwart any attempt to alter the results of the country’s first automated elections by entering passwords to secure the system.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said the poll body, together with two opposition legislators, already entered three separate passwords and locked the Central Canvassing System (CCS) of the automated election system.

Melo said he, Sen. Francis Escudero and Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. each entered a six- to eight-character code to prevent anyone from opening the entire automated election system.

“Each of us entered a code and we don’t know each other’s password so the system is now locked and in order to open the CCS, the three of us should be there and must re-enter the code,” Melo explained.

He said the Comelec had to lock the CCS to ensure the system would be “unpolluted” or cannot be modified by anybody who would want to tamper with the election results.

Melo also reported that the Comelec is set to “decommission” the National Printing Office (NPO) printing machine as soon as the last ballot is printed on Saturday.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the poll body will delete all the files and seal the printing machine to avoid printing of extra ballots.

“We have to do this to ensure that there will be no additional ballots or that genuine ballots can be substituted,” Larrazabal pointed out.

He said they expect the verification, packaging and transport of the ballots to be completed in a few days.

Also yesterday, Melo discounted the possibility of manipulating the spare precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, which the poll body is readying to replace those that will break down on election day.

“I don’t think anybody can just monkey around with the PCOS because we are now doing the final testing and sealing of all the machines. Aside from that, representatives of candidates and political parties are tightly watching over those machines,” Melo stressed.

The Comelec also reported that they were able to transfer printed ballots from the NPO in Quezon City to the Philippine Postal Office in Manila at the much lower cost of P23 million.

“From P92 million we were able to move the ballots at a reduced price of P23 million,” Melo said.

Larrazabal said the cut in cost of transport was due to cancellation of some unnecessary equipment and security proposed in the initial deal.

At this time, Melo said, the Comelec is now 100 percent on target in its preparations for the coming elections.

I am of course talking about Senator Noynoy Aquino and the Liberal Party. In case you haven't heard Aquino and his minions have been spreading talk of a failure of elections. Now, just so you know, what really pissed me off about Aquino's tirades against the poll automation system is his obvious attempt to undermine its credibility in an effort to imply that if he loses the only logical explanation would be is that the system was manipulated.

I already posted a rant on this, which you can find here. Now I realize that my criticisms will not do much to stop Aquino and his equally power-hungry allies from continuing their mind manipulation tactics. I am hopeful though that this warning from Comelec will do the trick.

(taken from inquirer.net)

Comelec warns automation critics of election offense
By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 18:01:00 04/14/2010

MANILA, Philippines--The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Wednesday that poll automation critics should stop sowing fear and rumor mongering of a potential nationwide failure of elections among the public or else they will face election offense charges.

“A deliberate concerted, continuous attempt to undermine credibility of elections is an election offense (consisting of imprisonment and fine) so I would caution these people (critics) to think about what they are saying twice. If they have reason to believe the polls will be rigged, we invite them to present their evidence than campaign for fear mongering among the public,” said Comelec spokesman James Jimenez.

“We are fearful that we are seeing large increase in number of reports of people saying things like these that elections will fail and more disturbing, if we do not follow their proposals,” he added.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said that “a failure to win in the elections does not equate to failure of elections.”

“If they are afraid of failure to win in the elections, it does not mean that the electoral system in place did not work because there is failure of elections, it is just that they did not win the elections. Automation will proceed no matter what,” said the commissioner.

Larrazabal added that Comelec will not release a list of areas, at least 20 percent in the country, where Comelec will hold manual polls if the poll machine will fail to transmit the results from polling precincts to Comelec canvassing centers and servers.

“The transmission issue does not mean that the poll machine will not be used to count the votes in the area. We have systems in place such as provision of mobile satellites and transfer of machine or memory device to a precinct where the results can be transmitted electronically,” said Larrazabal.

(From Philippine Star)

To the test statement, “The Comelec can be trusted to make sure that there is no sabotage of the machines to be used to count the votes in the 2010 election,” 58 percent agree and 12 percent disagree, for a net agreement score of +46, up 30 points from +16 (44 percent agree, 28 percent disagree) in October 2009.

Compared to October 2009, net agreement to the statement rose by 38 points in the Visayas, from +12 (37 percent agree, 25 percent disagree) to +50 (61 percent agree, 11 percent disagree).

It jumped by 30 points in balance Luzon, from +18 (47 percent agree, 29 percent disagree) to +48 (59 percent agree, 12 percent disagree).

It went up by 23 points in Metro Manila, from +11 (45 percent agree, 33 percent disagree) to +34 (54 percent agree, 21 percent disagree), and by 26 points in Mindanao, from +19 (45 percent agree, 25 percent disagree) to +45 (56 percent agree, 11 percent disagree).

It likewise rose by 35 points in class E, from +12 (41 percent agree, 30 percent disagree) to +47 (56 percent agree, nine percent disagree), by 30 points in class D, from +16 (45 percent agree, 28 percent disagree) to +46 (59 percent agree, 14 percent disagree), and by one point in class ABC, from +37 (54 percent agree, 17 percent disagree) to +38 (54 percent agree, 16 percent disagree).

Credit of course goes to Comelec for working hard to meet all the requirements needed to ensure the credibility of the country's first ever automated national election. The same goes for Smartmatic-TIM for also doing its best to fulfill its obligations. As of March 24, Smartmatic accomplished the following:

* 22 M Ballots printed as of today (Updated: more than 25 M Ballots printed as of March 29)
* 25 M Ballots by the end of week
* 800,000 ballots – daily printing capacity
* 5th leased printer undergoing installation procedures in NPO during the week. 5th printer will boost printing capacity by 20%
* 24,023 PCOS machines configured and tested with precinct-specific information
* 2,000 PCOS configured with precinct especific data per day at the Central Warehouse
* 2 PCOS and 2 CCS Units delivered t o Kalayaan Island Group
* 845 PCOS and 845 CCS delivered to Palawan by April 8
* 20,000 ballot boxes already in the country
* 13,000 ballot boxes arriving in the next two weeks
* 600 VSATs already in the country being prepared for delivery to designated Canvassing Centers.  Installation starts on April 5.
* 1,200 BGANs already in the warehouse.
* 600 BGANS are in transit and expected to arrive on March 27.  3,700 units are awaiting shipping documents.
* 43,566 PCOS support technicians trained and certified
* 2,315 CCS support technicians trained and certified

Looking at this list, one could at least see that Smartmatic and Comelec are doing real work not like those who continue to raise all sorts of doomsday scenarios and other black propaganda to undermine the automation of our elections.

By the way, it's also encouraging to know that more people are now aware of the poll automation project.

(from Philippine Star)

*The February 2010 survey also found that 93 percent were aware about the counting of votes by machine in the May 2010 elections, 62 percent have experienced filling forms by shading, 81 percent expect the new system of voting will be easier, and 82 percent expect the vote-counting by machine will be more accurate compared to past elections.*

*Nine out of 10 Filipinos said they have prior knowledge of the machine-counting system, while seven percent heard about it only at the time of the interview.*

I guess now we can safely say that the glass is now more than half full. Conversely -- that is if the doomsayers will insist on looking at it in a negative light --  this is a glass that is already less than half empty.

The mock polls would help the commission identify possible kinks in the whole process and identify appropriate adjustments.

While the Comelec saw the outcome of the exercise as a "glass half full," election watchdog Kontra Daya chose to see it as one that is half empty. According to the group, the mock poll proved that not all voters would be accommodated considering that the whole voting process would only run for 11 hours. A report from gmanews.tv shows how Kontra Daya's Ferdinand Gaite came to this conclusion.

He said that only an average of 60 voters per hour turned up during the Senate mock elections. Using this number, he said that only 660 voters will be able to vote on election day because voting will begin at 7 a.m. and will end at 6 p.m.

And even if the Commission on Elections (Comelec) still accommodates those in line after 6 p.m., he said the poll body would still need at least four hours to serve all the 1,000 voters expected to turn up.

The poll body expects 50,723,734 voters to flock to 76,340 clustered precincts nationwide on May 10.

And while Gaite acknowledges that the actual feeding of the ballot into the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines took only 45 seconds, he points out that each voter would actually take about 25 minutes to vote. He did qualify that by saying that his estimate already includes the time spent waiting in line.

Gaite suggested increasing the number of Board of Election Inspectors for every precinct. Jimenez, for his part, suggests the use of guides or "kodigo." He explains that the process would go faster if voters came to the precinct prepared with their list of candidates.

The Commission on Elections has announced the completion of deliveries of all the Precint Count OPtical Scan Machines to be used in the elections in May. The final delivery was made February 27, one day before the deadline. Smartmatic delivered about 82,000 optical scan machines.

With the completion of the machines, the commission is set to carry out the customization process.

The delivery of the machines encountered various difficulties such as bad weather and tight shipping schedules. The biggest cause of delay, however, was the petition filed by the group Concerned Citizens' Movement or CCM.Just so you all know the Supreme Court hearing on the petition to nullify the poll automation contract ran for two months.

Both Comelec and Smartmatic are now of course feeling vindicated. Officials says this only proves that they can meet deadlines.

Here are some of the more important points:

• SECTION 1. Period for testing and sealing of PCOS machines. – At least three (3) days before April 10, 2010 in the case of overseas absentee voting, or before the May 10, 2010 national and local elections, in the case of the elections here in the Philippines, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI)/Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEI) shall convene in their assigned polling places to test and seal the PCOS machines.
• SEC. 8. PCOS machines to be opened on May 10, 2010 or on April 10, 2010 for overseas absentee voting. – PCOS machines shall only be opened on May 10, 2010 or, for overseas voting, on April 10, 2010, and before the voting starts and in the presence of watchers, if any.

The document provides specific details on how the testing and sealing will be carried  out. Those who are really interested in knowing the procedures may review the resolution in the Comelec's website.

On another matter, the Commission has already posted digital copies of the ballot templates in its website. This was done on the request of some candidates who wish to come out with  their own sample ballots. The Comelec's decision is stated in Resolution No. 8760.

The ballot templates may be viewed on the Comelec website as well. Voters are advised to check them out. Just follow these links:

• National Ballot Template for non-ARMM areas
• National Ballot Template for ARMM areas
• Local Ballot Templates