Comelec to test 2 poll automation systems in ARMM elections
By Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 17:34:00 07/05/2008
Filed Under: Elections, Computing & Information Technology
MANILA, Philippines -- The Commission on Elections has adopted two systems of poll automation that will be tested during the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) this August.
James Jimenez, education and information director of the poll body, said the two technologies are those that involve direct recording electronics and optical media readers.
"The reason why we are using two systems is to find out which is viable for the 2010 elections," Jimenez said at the weekly Kapihan sa Sulo Hotel news forum in Quezon City.
Both systems promise to come up with elections results in a matter of hours.
Jimenez said that the automated ARMM elections will cost a total of P586 million, including the manpower and technology costs.
The direct recording electronic system uses a touch pad containing candidates' names and pictures that will be used to choose candidates, a touch screen that will display the person's votes and a small slot that will print his or her choices.
The counting under the DRE system will be done through an Internet-based system.
The optical media readers, on the other hand, will use marked ballots that will be transported to "counting centers" where they will be fed into the counting machines.
Under the DRE system, which will be used only in Maguindanao, the votes punched into the system will be transmitted to the Comelec via a "virtual private network" in the Internet.
"We have minimized human intervention in the counting and canvassing process and in the case of Maguindanao, where the DRE equipment will be used, there will be no human intervention in the counting and canvassing," said Vince Dizon, spokesperson for DRE provider Smartmatic-Sahi.
Dizon said the firm's P120-million system during the ARMM elections will provide 3,500 DRE systems for Maguindanao. He said there may be three DRE machines per precinct in the province.
He added they also have the same number of car batteries as backup power sources in case outages occur during the elections and counting processes.
The printed vote form that will be generated by the system will stay with the Comelec and will only be used if verification is needed later on.
"The voters might use it as a receipt," Jimenez said in jest in reference to the incidence of vote buying.
While the DRE system relies on an Internet protocol to do away with the manual handling of ballots, the OMR system will still require procedures from the old election system.
The system will cost P86 million for the ARMM elections.
For instance, the marked ballots will still have to be placed in boxes for transportation to canvassing areas where the automated counters will be.
The only difference is that instead of municipal and provincial canvassing areas, there will only be nine "counting centers" for the OMR ballots.
The counting machines made up of scanners and laptop computers can count the votes in a ballot for a minute.
"We will have nine counting centers in five provinces," said Leo Querubin, project director of OMR supplier Avante Integrated Technologies.
The OMR ballots feature ovals that need to be shaded corresponding to one's choice of candidates much like a lottery machine determines number combinations based on markings on a lottery card.
Querubin said that the system's security lies in barcoded ballots and accompanying 24-digit numbers.
"We are confident that no election cheating will happen in the areas covered by our technology. The OMR security features include a 24-digit randomly generated bar code which identifies the ballots as being from a specific precinct," Querubin said.
"The OMR would only count it when it verifies that the ballot is from that precinct," he added.
The counting machines of the OMR system aside from processing vote data will also scan the ballots individually for its image.
"If the ballots are snatched on the way to the counting centers, there will be a failure of election," Querubin said.
Querubin said no other ballot form can be fed into the counting machines other than those proven to have come from particular precincts as shown by the individual barcodes.
Jimenez said the automated election procedures have already been posted on the website www.armm2008.com.ph.
He said both suppliers who passed the Comelec's bidding processes are involved in education and information dissemination regarding the automated elections in the region.
The ARMM is one of the areas reputed to be a haven of "election operators" that cause vote-padding and vote-shaving systems during the counting and canvassing stages. These result in altered election results.
"Although it may not solve the entire problem of election fraud, the automated elections in the Armm will surely address the serious concerns of dagdag-bawas (vote-adding and -shaving). This is mainly due to the almost complete removal of human intervention in the counting and canvassing process," Jimenez said.
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