More on 2013 Elections

I think we have done it again, making bad out of something good.

Automated elections were hailed the first time around, as the speed with which winners were proclaimed made everyone wonder why it took us so long to turn to our system to machines.

For sure, there were grave doubts about whether PCOS (precinct count optical scan) was the best system available. Whether we should retain them and continue the deal with the same contractors.

Before we knew it, the PCOS was installed once again as the voting and counting machine, with only a few listening to the questions raised against it. There were random reports in the media about the issue; but nothing to get the public concerned enough about whether we should stick to PCOS or throw it out.

Everyone must share the blame for our doubts and dissatisfaction. But COMELEC (Commission on Elections) must bear the greater burden of accountability. Elections may be seasonal. But preparing for elections, especially with the adoption of automation, should have had COMELEC working extra hard to make sure of their preparedness for the exercise. The election is after all the only way that the public participates directly and exercises collectively a fundamental democratic right.

The 9-3 showing in favor of the administration’s candidates may well reflect the will of the people. Exit polls concurred with this, if not the individual rankings. Those competing for the last two or three places should take their complaints to the proper venues.

But the public deserve a full clarification of the technical issues, as complex as these are. These should not be dismissed as “too technical” or set aside for time being – because, well, the elections and now the results cannot be postponed.

In 2010, experts were concerned about the lack of source code and its review. The media lost interest after the electoral results were known. In 2013, the source code still could not be released because of a legal dispute in the US between the two foreign companies, Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., having some ownership of the system.

A report less than two weeks before the elections said COMELEC Chairperson Sixto Brilliantes, Jr., announced that the source code was with COMELEC and that it had been reviewed by a third party. In the same report, he admitted that the certification papers could not be released by the company owning the code. Thus it could not be released to stakeholders and political parties.

Speaking as a lawyer, Brilliantes said in the same report, the review of the source code was not necessary for the holding of elections; “but was more for the purpose of removing the doubt of stakeholders.” Sub-text: stakeholder doubts are not that important.

These doubts now hound elections 2013. As a lawyer, Brilliantes should be sensitive to the legal questions, including the lack of certification of the source code.

There are other questions raised by COMELEC’s decisions during election week. One was the suspension of the canvassing of votes. The other had to do with the partial proclamation of Senate winners, which Comelec decided to do, so it could show haste when it failed at speed at delivering results.

No less than former Supreme Court chief justice Artemio Panganiban criticized the piece meal proclamation for “their baselessness and illegality at their inception.” Perhaps, Panganiban’s words “premature, imprudent and illegal” also apply to the same partial proclamation of the party-list winners, which COMELEC did while still canvassing votes.

I will leave to the IT experts and the lawyers to discuss with greater knowledge the critical issues about the use of PCOS in 2013. But it does not take a lawyer to find fault with the attitude and outlook of its head, and one must presume, of the rest of the commissioners.

Early on, even before the campaign had started, Brilliantes dismissed the requirement of certification of the source code raised by IT expert Gus Lagman. In the week of elections, Brilliantes threatened d to file charges against all his critics who pointed out the glitches and problems in transmission of counts. He expressed his suspicions about a “conspiracy” among the groups working as election watchdogs.

According to a PDI (Philippine Daily Inquirer) report, the chairman said, “They’ve been hitting the COMELEC for the past three years…Initially, I thought they wanted only the attention because they are not saying anything new.”

If the critics were complaining about these issues for the last three years, why didn’t COMELEC do something about it? And not doing anything about it, why did it fail at providing a satisfactory explanation?

All this has revealed that PCOS not only failed to deliver on speed but also raised doubts about legal and technical aspects of election 2013. And let’s not hear any more comparative judgments about how it has been better than other elections historically. Automation should have ramped up the satisfaction with the process to another level.

Instead we have this.

It is not too early to ask the COMELEC to review the use of PCOS and be held accountable for its use, along with all the other things it did not attend to in the last three years.

It would help for them to admit to some failings first.