Poll machines pass 2nd round of tests
By Mayen Jaymalin (The Philippine Star) Updated May 07, 2010 12:00 AM
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MANILA, Philippines - Automated elections nationwide will be held as scheduled on Monday, the
Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday with renewed optimism after the machines passed a
second round of tests.
Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said compact flash cards will be distributed by Saturday to 95 percent of the
clustered precincts throughout the country.
“In case there would be precincts in very, very remote areas without compact flash cards or if they do not
arrive on time, voters will still go and vote, and their ballots will be deposited in ballot boxes and, on election
day itself or the day after the flash cards arrive and (are) tested, the ballots will then be fed for counting,” he
said.
Results of testing of PCOS machines, particularly in Metro Manila, showed a 100 percent match of manual
and machine counting of votes, he added.
Melo said manual counting of votes would be held only in small municipalities, in case a machine would
malfunction and a spare one is not immediately available.
Only the canvassing of votes in about 320 polling precincts nationwide – in some municipalities in Negros
Occidental, Isabela, Basilan, Cagayan, Maguindanao, Palawan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur,
Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Misamis Occidental, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur – might be
delayed for a few hours or a day due to the late arrival of the flash cards, Melo said.
“All will be able to vote but counting may be done on the night of election day or the next day.”
As of yesterday, flashcards have been dispatched to Bohol, Guimaras, Abra, Capiz, Batanes, Quirino,
Parañaque, Marikina, Batangas and Palawan, according to Cezar Flores, Smartmatic spokesman.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is fast-tracking the entry of the new compact flashcards for the counting
machines.
Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales said his office has been coordinating closely with Comelec
Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal on all their shipping needs.
At Malacañang, presidential spokesman Ricardo Saludo denied reports that Mrs. Arroyo and her key security
officials had discussed the possibility of a failure of elections.
“I don’t recall any such scenario,” he said.
Saludo said the administration’s focus has always been on how to help the Comelec conduct honest,
orderly and peaceful elections.
Macalintal: Selective poll delay illegal
Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal warned the Comelec yesterday that selective postponement of the May 10
elections is against the Constitution.
“Under the law, it should be synchronized. Otherwise, it will only be a source for graft and corruption.”
“We don’t even know what will happen next now that they have not even tried the transmission (mode) yet.
Macalintal said postponing the elections in some areas will open the gates to more fraud.
“The tail-enders will go to these places and they will try their very best to manipulate the results of the
elections.”
Comelec, Smartmatic officials no-show
Officials of the Comelec and Smartmatic did not appear at the installation of the Consolidation and
Canvassing System (CCS) that will count the votes for president at the House of Representatives.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said House Secretary General Marilyn Yap
had to speak on their behalf.
“Their (Comelec and Smartmatic executives) absence is a major insult to the House,” he said.
“They think our questions do not matter.”
Casiño said Smartmatic sent a technician who could not answer questions.
The equipment was placed at the session hall near the podium, Casiño told reporters.
Only authorized personnel will be allowed around the area, which will be secured until the canvassing of
votes starts.
Staff members of the House and Senate secretaries general attended the installation of the CCS server,
comprising a Dell laptop, a printer and a generator, which can be used in the event of a power outage.
Yap told Casiño and Rep. Neri Colmenares that results not electronically transmitted will be entered into the
CCS manually.
The same would be done with overseas absentee voting results.
“The turnover by Comelec and Smartmatic to the House was a mess,” he said.
“Can you imagine, they were using the guidelines for provincial canvassing as they were installing the CCS
for the presidential canvassing. It’s like a joke to the Comelec.”
Yap told Colmenares and Casiño that only those who know the password can open the CCS to access the
transmitted results.
Casiño said he noticed that security keys to be used for passwords and usernames came from an open
envelope, wrapped in ordinary paper and not even sealed.
“Anyone who could have accessed the security tokens in the unsealed envelope and read the passwords
written on a piece of paper could now enter fake results in the CCS.”
Colmenares said a losing presidential candidate can now question these results and create havoc in the
presidential canvassing.
“The fact that the envelopes were open is a major fiasco,” he said.
Colmenares said House members were informed that results of the overseas absentee voting will be
physically transmitted through memory cards.
“Waiting for the results from countries abroad will surely cause delay in the canvassing,” he said.
“It is possible that we will be canvassing the results for more than 48 hours. Moreover, it is difficult for poor
party-list candidates like Bayan Muna who cannot afford watchers to guard the memory cards all the way to
the Philippines.”
Casiño said the installation of the CCS was a failure.
“The card or flash reader was not tested if it could read information, or if it would accept flashcards physically
transmitted.
“There was even no testing of electronic transmission. Bayan Muna will file a protest with the Comelec on
these dangerous developments.”
Casiño said the testing of the server was a big disappointment.
“No complete testing was done on the capability to receive transmissions or read physically transmitted
results,” he said.
“Overall, the test did not inspire confidence in the CCS.”
Sotto: Give modernization a chance
Nationalist People’s Coalition senatorial candidate Vicente Sotto III called yesterday on the country’s leaders
and the public to give election modernization a chance.
Sotto told The STAR people should not worry as long as the problems with the PCOS can be solved in time.
“A parallel manual count will create confusion and (is) subject to manipulation,” he said.
A manual count should only be allowed in areas where the counting machines would falter, Sotto said.
Bagumbayan standard-bearer Sen. Richard Gordon called yesterday on the Comelec to ensure that the
PCOS machines will work on election day.
“Failure is not an option,” he said.
“Focus and get to work. If it is necessary to move the election date by a week to ensure reliability of the
machines, then do it. Work on the solution.”
Gordon said the Comelec must not panic as problems in any project tend to crop up at the last minute.
“These are tough decisions but they have to be made,” he said.
Watchdogs: Support Comelec
Election watchdogs called yesterday on the public to support the Comelec for the country’s first automated
elections to be successful.
Task Force 2010, a group of various election watchdogs, asked voters to defend and uphold their right of
suffrage.
“Let us not be intimidated or be afraid to engage in the first automated synchronized national and local
elections,” said Bro. Joseph Raymund Patrick Sanches, executive director of Simbahang Lingkod Bayan,
one of the 19 member-organizations of Task Force 2010.
“Let us not allow setbacks to discourage us from exercising our right. Instead, let these be the litmus test of
our commitment to our democracy and our resolve to vote conscientiously as our concrete way of defending
our democracy.”
Recto: Manual counting in local polls
Liberal Party senatorial candidate Ralph Recto proposed yesterday the manual counting of votes in local
elections.
“Comelec should have at least a backup plan to avoid a failure of elections in the event that the PCOS
machines develop a severe reading disorder,” he said.
Recto said the glitches in the PCOS machines might affect only the counting of votes.
“With only few days to go before the elections, Comelec should immediately come up with a solution,” he
said.
“Time is running out and the task at hand seems to be overwhelming.”
He said in Batangas where the ballots’ backside was misread, this problem can be corrected in a parallel
manual count.
“I am under the impression that the PCOS machines misread only the backside of the ballot, where local
candidates are listed,” he said.
“But in the national positions, there seems to be no problem. So what the Comelec can do is implement a
sort of hybrid polls.
“It can even automate the counting of votes for all positions but conduct a parallel manual count for the local
ones.”
Recto said a parallel manual count of votes would solve most of the problems being encountered by
Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM.
“Everything else would just be a band-aid solution to the problem at hand. But an across-the-board parallel
manual count of the votes in all positions would be a catch-all method of responding to the failure of the
machines,” he said. — Marvin Sy, Delon Porcalla, Paolo Romero, Michael Punongbayan, Iris Gonzales,
Helen Flores, Mike Frialde
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Voting machines malfunction
By Sheila Crisostomo (The Philippine Star) Updated May 05, 2010 12:00 AM
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MANILA, Philippines - Fears of election failure intensified yesterday after some of the precinct count optical
scan (PCOS) machines to be used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) failed test runs in some
parts of the country, prompting a stop to the testing and a recall of the machines.
President Arroyo ordered Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) chairman
Ray Anthony Chua to meet with Comelec and Smartmatic officials to see what could be done to address the
problem.
Mrs. Arroyo’s election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said postponement of the elections “is the only remedy to
prevent a failure of election.”
Smartmatic president for Asia-Pacific Cesar Flores said when the testing started last Monday, some PCOS
machines produced “contradictory” reading of the ballots for local elective posts.
“The first thing to do is look at all these reports and go to different possibilities of errors and finally it was
narrowed down to configuration issue,” Flores said during a press conference at the Comelec.
The conference was also attended by Makati congressman and Joint Congressional Oversight Committee
for Poll Automation co-chairman Teddy Boy Locsin, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV)
chairperson Henrietta de Villa and Chua, among others.
The names of candidates for national posts were printed on the ballots with a single space in between
rows, while the names of the local bets are in double spaces.
During the testing, the machines were able to count the votes cast for the candidates in the first row but it did
not read the votes in the second row presumably because of the space between the two rows.
“It will read this candidate as blank space. It’s a human error. It had already been detected,” said Flores, who
said Smartmatic and its Filipino partner Total Information Management Corp. (TIM) would assume
responsibility since it is a “technical issue.”
After testing, the teachers serving as Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) are supposed to seal the PCOS
machines, which will be opened only on election day.
Birth pains of going high-tech
To address the problem, Smartmatic-TIM will replace the four-gigabyte compact flash (CF) memory cards
installed in all the PCOS machines assigned to each of the 76,000 polling precincts.
The cards contain the “polling precinct information” for a certain PCOS machine.
Because of this, the machine cannot be used in any other precinct without being configured first.
“The procedure is to replace the compact flash with corrected configuration. This will force us to stop (the
testing and the) sealing for the next couple of days. We’ll resume (tomorrow). It is a logistical challenge.
Technically, it’s an easy correction,” Flores said, brushing aside fears that the glitch would lead to failure of
the polls.
He said the testing and the sealing, supposed to be done seven to three days before election day, were
meant to “deny fraud and cheating by showing how the system is counting and also to detect failure in
hardware or software.”
Flores gave assurance that Smartmatic-TIM could acquire all the needed memory cards in time for the
resumption of the testing and sealing tomorrow.
The Comelec had leased 82,200 PCOS machines from the joint venture but some 6,000 of them are spare.
A recipe for chaos
The joint venture is presently assessing how many “jurisdictions” were affected by the glitches.
However, as a rule, if a PCOS machine fails the test in one precinct, all the units are automatically grounded.
So far, the affected areas include Manila, Makati City, Taguig City, Laguna, Palawan, Batangas and Mindoro.
At least 80 percent of the PCOS machines in Manila failed to work, according to Ali Atienza, son and
campaign manager of mayoralty candidate Lito Atienza.
In District 3, the machines failed to read the votes for congressman and mayor, and votes for Atienza were
credited in favor of incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim.
Atienza also came out with zero votes even if there were at least eight or nines votes cast in his favor.
In Makati City, Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado complained that the machines tallied only the votes of his
opponent for the mayoralty, Erwin Genuino.
Tensions ran high in Batangas between BEIs and Comelec officials on the one hand, and representatives of
local candidates from 12 municipalities and two cities on the other, after the PCOS machines failed to work
for several reasons.
Hearing the news in Manila, the Comelec office in Isabela City in Basilan immediately recalled 48 machines
from the municipalities of Maluso and Tabuanlasa, causing alarm among local residents.
Several political parties immediately called on the poll body to check the flaws to ensure the sanctity and
credibility of the elections.
While other candidates were open to the possibility that there were just technical issues involved, others
believe that something more sinister is afoot.
Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino senatorial bet Joey de Venecia said the PCOS machines are a potential tool for
an “Electronic Garci,” and urged the Comelec to take legal action against Smartmatic.
“I will not say that the May 10 elections will be rigged, but I will say that the automated system is likely to fail,”
De Venecia said.
Public school teachers also expressed apprehension over the malfunctions of the machines and their late
delivery.
“We are getting worried. There are only a few days left before election day and we hope these problems will
be addressed because teachers will be in the frontline and will be the ones who will face the voters,”
Teacher’s Dignity Coalition national chairman Benjamin Basas said.
Poll watchdog Kontra Daya also raised the alarm over the machine’s failure, saying the problem will
compromise the integrity of the coming polls.
Comelec: No failure of elections
But Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento reiterated the poll body’s confidence that there would be no
failure of election resulting from this incident.
“We are optimistic that there will be no failure of election. We have discussed this. In the event that it will
happen, 30 percent will serve as backup for manual purposes,” he said, referring to the preparation being
done by the poll body to conduct manual polls.
The agency had printed 30 percent of the forms required for manual election like election returns, statement
of votes and certificates of canvassing.
However, Sarmiento admitted that the Comelec is not prepared to go manual beyond 30 percent as he
claimed that the agency does not think this will happen.
PPCRV’s De Villa also admitted that her confidence in a successful automated polls had diminished.
“(But) one good thing about it is that it has been detected and it can be solved,” De Villa said.
For his part, Macalintal said the Comelec, on its own, based on serious cause like the apparent failure of
PCOS machines to properly and correctly function, is authorized under Section 5 of the Omnibus Election
Code to postpone the polls.
“Under the present situation, a 15-day postponement would be reasonable to give time for the Comelec to
print additional forms for manual tally and canvass,” he said.
Deputy presidential spokesman Rogelio Peyuan said Mrs. Arroyo met with Chua yesterday and directed him
to give all his support to the Comelec. The CICT is a member of an advisory committee overseeing the
automation of the polls.
He said the President was very concerned with the developments in the run-up to the country’s first
nationwide automated polls, which she earlier repeatedly stated as one of her legacies.
“Mrs. Arroyo is continuously monitoring and trying to find out what really happened, not necessarily to find out
who is to be blamed because we are not just dealing with human beings. We are dealing with machines
and with technology,” Peyuan said.
He, however, said the Palace would not budge from its position against a parallel manual counting of the
votes.
AFP: No more turning back
Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) remains confident that the May 10 polls would be held
smoothly even in the face of several glitches.
“We are working for them (Comelec), we are supposed to trust them and we believe they are more than
capable of making this election credible,” said AFP Task Force HOPE (Honest, Orderly and Peaceful
Elections) spokesman Col. Ricardo Nepomuceno.
National Capital Region Command (NCRCOM) chief Rear Admiral Feliciano Angue, who oversees the
security of the PCOS machines in Metro Manila, ruled out a failure of election.
“A failure of election is unlikely. For example, in a worst-case scenario that the machines won’t work, we still
have the ballots and these can be counted manually,” he said during the delivery of counting machines in
Tandang Sora, Quezon City from a warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna.
Angue said the other counting machines can still be delivered to polling precincts in Metro Manila before the
elections.
“We need two days to complete it. If the delivery would resume on May 7, this would be completed on May 9,”
Angue said in Filipino.
He said the military and the police are prepared to secure the movement of the machines once the technical
glitches are resolved.
“As far as our tasking is concerned, we are ready to do what the Comelec is asking us to do. But there is a
need to fix the machines and that is the problem of Smartmatic. Otherwise, the delivery would be
continuous,” Angue said. - With Marvin Sy, Jose Rodel Clapano, Rainier Allan Ronda, Roel Pareño, Ric
Sapnu, Ding Cervantes, Arnell Ozaeta, Alexis Romero, Sandy Araneta
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