Filipinos look forward to first automated vote in 2010 (News Feature)

Jul 7, 2009, 3:52 GMT

   Manila - For as long as Filipinos can remember, votes in their elections have been counted by hand in a tedious process that takes several weeks to complete, making it prone to fraud and mistakes.

   Teachers, who are designated by law to be elections officers, tally votes on blackboards in sweltering classrooms swamped with voters and representatives of warring politicians.

   The count often goes on until the wee hours of the morning or the following day. In some places where there is no electricity, candles are used during the vigil as heavily armed soldiers stand guard against violence, which usually erupts among rivals.

   In 2010, Filipinos are hoping they would finally be able to say goodbye to those days when they have to wait for more than one month before knowing who won their elections.

   The Commission on Elections (Comelec) recently awarded a 150-million-dollar contract to a Barbados-based firm and its Philippine partners to implement a long-delayed plan to automate the country's elections starting on May 10, 2010, when Filipinos are to elect a successor to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

   Under the contract, the consortium, led by Smartmatic International Corp, would provide 82,000 ballot-scanning machines across the Philippines to speed up the elections.

   Cezar Flores, a spokesman for Smartmatic, said winners in national contests would be known in as soon as two days.

   Flores added that more than 90 per cent of election results would be in within the first six hours after precincts are closed. He also said the count would have '100-per-cent accuracy.'

   Each machine would have passwords, data encryption as well as memory and power backups. It would reject fraudulent or tainted ballots to avoid previous experiences in which ballots were tampered or fake ballots were added in precincts to help boost a candidate's standing.

   'Every machine has its own personality,' Flores said. 'If the machine is only for a precinct with 800 registered voters, it cannot read more than 800 ballots.'

   He said the machines have been used in elections in the United States, Canada and Britain.

   Despite the assurances, some politicians and analysts said they were not 100-per-cent confident that the automation of the 2010 polls would proceed smoothly, especially since it would be the first time for the system to be used in the Philippines.

   Political commentator and economist Winnie Monsod said it was not yet time for Filipinos to sit back and relax despite the awarding of the contract.

   'The public has to be ever more vigilant to make sure that we don't find ourselves facing total chaos on election day and - the worst scenario of all - a failure of elections,' Monsod warned.

   'It should not be assumed that just because there is automation, there could be no cheating,' she added. 'Given new technologies, it is possible that cheating can occur on an even more massive scale.'

   Some lawmakers have also expressed concern over the tenuous relationship between Smartmatic and its local partner, Total Information Management Corp, after a squabble that almost broke up the partnership.

   It was just weeks after the contract was awarded when Total Information announced it was out of the project, throwing the automation plan into a quandary and forcing Comelec officials to scramble for a plan B.

   Plan B was forcing the two companies to sit down and talk over their differences and threatening the executives with legal action if the project did not go through.

   While the partnership is back on track, Senator Edgardo Angara and a number of other legislators demanded an explanation on what the two partners had fought about and how they had settled their differences.

   There were also allegations that Total Information's owners have close ties with Arroyo and her camp, who have been accused of massive cheating in the 2004 presidential elections.

   'Transparency is what this country needs, and an automated election is the way to ensure our citizens that their votes will be protected and will be counted in appointing the next leaders of the country,' Angara said.

   Jose Mari Antunez, president of Total Management, denied having any links to Arroyo, her husband or any of her officials during a Senate inquiry into the deal.

   Comelec Chairman Jose Melo allayed fears that the poll automation would fail and the 2010 elections would be postponed.

   'The way I look at it, with 82,000 units, not all 82,000 will fail,' he said. 'The law of probability is at work here. You don't expect all 82,000 machines to fail, probably less than 100.'

   He added that the contract requires Smartmatic to provide back-up machines in case of breakdowns.

   'Election failure will not be because of machines; it will be because of men,' he said.

   Elections in the Philippines have traditionally been marred by violence and allegations of massive cheating. In the country's last national elections in 2007, more than 140 people were killed in poll-related violence.