It should be clear by now that the success of the upcoming automated elections would also depend on the cooperation of everyone. The Commission on Eelections has been doing all it can to ensure that the new system would bring about much improvement in the way we carry out elections. Smartmatic-TIM is also doing its best to set up the system despite the delays caused by events beyond their control such as the petition filed by the Concerned Citizen's MOvement.

Securing the system is one area where cooperation will be crucial. I am specifically referring to the issue raised yesterday by Comelec about the reported arrival in the country of over 5,000 units of cellphone signal jammers. Comelec spokesperson James JImenez says this presents a threat to the conduct of automated elections in May.

Here's how jammers work:

(excerpt from Wikipedia)

As with other radio jamming, cell phone jammers block cell phone use by sending out radio waves along the same frequencies that cellular phones use. This causes enough interference with the communication between cell phones and towers to render the phones unusable. On most retail phones, the network would simply appear out of range. Most cell phones use different bands to send and receive communications from towers (called full duplexing). Jammers can work by either disrupting phone to tower frequencies or tower to phone frequencies. Smaller handheld models block all bands from 800MHz to 1900MHz within a 30-foot range (9 meters). Small devices tend to use the former method, while larger more expensive models may interfere directly with the tower. The radius of cell phone jammers can range from a dozen feet for pocket models to kilometers for more dedicated units. The TRJ-89 jammer can block cellular communications for a 5-mile (8 km) radius.[1]

Actually it needs less energy to disrupt signal from tower to mobile phone, than the signal from mobile phone to the tower (also called base station), because base station is located at larger distance from the jammer than the mobile phone and that is why the signal from the tower is not so strong [2].

Older jammers sometimes were limited to working on phones using only analog or older digital mobile phone standards. Newer models such as the double and triple band jammers can block all widely used systems (CDMA, iDEN, GSM, et al.) and are even very effective against newer phones which hop to different frequencies and systems when interfered with. As the dominant network technology and frequencies used for mobile phones vary worldwide, some work only in specific regions such as Europe or North America.

Jimenez himself admits that jamming devices could be used to delay the real-time electronic transmission of voting results for automated canvassing. This is a bad thing because delays in transmission will open the system to cheating such as vote padding and/or shaving.

It's good Comelec got wind of this report. Whether it is true or not, it should really prompt the commission and Smartmatic-TIM to initiate appropriate measures. But then again that's just as far as it goes where Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM are concerned. Securing the system, after all, should involve other agencies that have more power to address external threats to poll automation.

With regard to jamming devices, the Bureau of Customs, Department of Transportation and Communications and National Telecommunications Commission should definitely get involved. Since this is an unverified report, these agencies should first investigate if there really was such a shipment.

A more pro-active approach -- since the possibility of such a threat has already been brought up anyway -- is to perhaps look into the possibility of imposing a temporary ban on the shipping, sale and use of such devices. I think that's the best that can be done for now since jammers are not illegal here in the Philippines unlike in the United States and several other countries.