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140 days
to go before the May 2013 elections?
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from
NAMFREL Election Monitor Vol.2, No.29 |
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Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman
Sixto Brilliantes, Jr. admitted that the screening and purging of
party list organizations, which started in mid-2012, had been eating
up the time of the Comelec en banc. He said that the finalization of
the party list eligibility had been prioritized so that they can
then focus on ballot configuration, which has to be finalized in
January 2013. Ballot configuration refers to specifications in the
ballots such as the precinct number, clustered precincts, the number
of registered voters in the precinct, and official list of
candidates. Brilliantes assured the public though that their
preparations are still on track.
With the elections only 140 days away, and the Election Period
officially starting in three weeks based on the Comelec's Calendar
of Activities, it is in the interest of election stakeholders
especially the voting public to focus on the Comelec's state of
preparedness, and to encourage the Comelec to ensure that the
schedule they have set for themselves is adhered to.
A cursory glance at the Comelec's revised implementation calendar
(approved by the Comelec en banc in a meeting on June 26) to be
followed should it exercise (which it did) the option to purchase
Smartmatic's PCOS machines, reveal that deadlines for AES-related
activities were already missed. For one, contracts for essential
services and paraphernalia for the automated elections -- like the
PCOS warehouse, ballots, transmission of results, ballot boxes, and
ballot packaging -- were supposed to have been awarded by August
2012, but are still pending as of this writing.
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The following are some items in the implementation calendar
and respective deadlines set by the Comelec: |
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Validation of
software enhancements: November 19 |
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Testing of
Systems / Application software including field test:
December 8 |
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Mock election for
technical evaluation committee certification: December 12
(note: in a news report
early this month, Brilliantes said the Comelec is preparing
for mock elections in January) |
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Some items that need to be finished before the end of year
or by first week of January 2013, going by the Comelec's
implementation calendar: |
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Deployment and integration of unbundled
services |
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Drafting of rules
for the random manual audit (RMA) |
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Finalization of
the list of candidates |
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Finalization of
the project of precincts |
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The Comelec, per their calendar, has also
given themselves time to conduct public demonstrations using
machines, which should have started on December 16, ending on May 1,
2013.
According to Comelec Resolution no. 9385 or the Calendar of
Activities for the May 2013 elections (different from the AES
implemetation calendar), promulgated on April 3, the Comelec would
also need to constitute the Boards of Election Inspectors (BEIs),
Boards of Canvassers (BOCs), Special BEIs and Special BOCs, as well
as Special Ballot Reception and Custody Groups (SBRCGs) by January
15, 2013.
Some updates on Comelec's preparations and other issues in the
run-up to the May 2013 elections:
Automated election system
There has been no satisfying conclusion yet regarding the concern of
several poll watchdogs on whether the automation of the May 2013
elections will indeed happen and without any hitch. With no
resolution yet on Smartmatic's
lawsuit in the US against technology provider Dominion Voting
Systems, and Dominion's
contention that its agreement with with Smartmatic is no longer
in effect, poll watchdogs and IT experts in the Philippines fear
that the Comelec either might not be able to use the AES technology
and the 82,000 PCOS machines that the Philippines had just bought
from Smartmatic for Php 1.8-billion, or that the Comelec might
resort to using "pirated" technology, as alleged, if indeed Dominion
will not allow the use of its technology in 2013.
During the hearing on the matter conducted by the Joint
Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System
(JCOC-AES) on November 28, IT expert and former Comelec commissioner
Augusto Lagman also brought up the issue of the PCOS machines' error
rate, citing the results of a mock poll held at the House of
Representatives in July when the machine used by Smartmatic had an
accuracy rate of only 97.21%, or 557 errors in every 20,000 marks.
The AES requirement and contract allows only for one error in every
20,000, or an accuracy rate of 99.995%. Lagman said that the low
accuracy rate could "make or unmake candidates for mayor, vice
mayor, congressman and the bottom half of local councilors,
provincial board members and even senators."
Poll watchdog Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) has since
issued a statement calling for Congress to look for a new poll
technology provider for the 2013 elections due to the uncertainty
with regard the Smartmatic-Dominion case as well as the perceived
inadequacies of Smartmatic's system.
In the same JCOC hearing in November, Smartmatic gave assurance
though that under the licensing agreement it signed with Dominion in
2009, Dominion will provide the needed services even after the 2010
elections. Smartmatic also said that Comelec's decision to purchase
the machines ties Dominion to any services related to the license,
and that even if Dominion terminates the agreement (as Dominion
claims), Dominion still has to retroactively comply with all its
commitments to the agreement with Smartmatic providing service to
the Comelec. Smartmatic added that Dominion has never contacted
Comelec to inform that it cannot anymore use its technology. Senator
Alan Peter Cayetano, who presided over the hearing, accepted
Smartmatic's clarification but said that the Committee will require
the company to provide more proof that the Comelec will not be
barred from using Dominion's technology. “We want to make sure that
we will not revert to manual polls next year just because Smartmatic
cannot use (Dominion’s) software,” Cayetano said.
A JCOC hearing scheduled for this month has been postponed twice; it
is now scheduled to be held on a still unspecified date in January.
Meanwhile, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, chairperson of the Senate
Committee on Electoral Reform and People's Participation, issued a
statement on December 20 inviting volunteer IT experts to help
review the various source codes to be used by the Comelec in the
2013 elections. The source codes and the machines that used them,
the EMS, PCOS and canvassing system, were first used by the Comelec
in the 2010 elections. "Our objective is to bring back the trust of
the people in the Comelec and the elections itself. A review of the
source codes would allow the detection of glitches, flaws and
vulnerabilities in our electronic electoral system. Such flaws in
the software and the hardware that use them must be detected and
corrected if the 2013 and succeeding elections are to be protected
from sabotage or attempts to favor any particular candidate," said
Pimentel. The senator also called on the Comelec to be "less
restrictive" in the review, to allow the source code to be examined
outside Comelec premises.
Digital signatures
According to a resolution dated December 7, the Comelec will again
"use the PCOS digital certificate to digitally sign the election
returns for the May 13, 2013 National and Local Elections." This
means that the Comelec will verify election returns (ERs) using
digital signatures that is encoded by Smartmatic's PCOS machine.
What this means further is that, while in the past, the teachers
acting as members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) would
attest to the accuracy of the count in the polling station they are
assigned, now the PCOS machine would attest to the accuracy of its
own count. According to the Supreme Court’s rules on Republic Act
8792 or the ECommerce Act, a digital signature refers to “an
electronic signature consisting of a transformation of an electronic
document or an electronic data message… such that a person having
the initial untransformed electronic document… can accurately
determine ... whether the initial electronic document had been
altered after the transformation was made.” The E-Commerce Act,
meanwhile, defines an electronic signature as “any distinctive mark,
characteristic, and/or sound in electronic form, representing the
identity of a person and attached to or logically associated with
the electronic data message or electronic document… with the
intention of authenticating or approving an electronic data message
or electronic document.”
Bobby Tuazon of poll watchdog Center for People Empowerment in
Governance (CenPEG) says that by using digital signatures, the
Comelec would be violating the Election Automation Law. He noted
that the AES Law state that the digital signature should be made and
known only to the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) and not the
PCOS machine. Under Section 9 of the AES Law, election returns
“shall be signed and thumb marked by all the members of the board of
election inspectors and the watchers present.” “The danger there is
that the digital signature is machine-operated [and] will be known
again to the Comelec. They should have no access to the digital
signature. Not even the Comelec commissioners. That is supposed to
be the authorization only to the BEIs,” Tuazon said. The Comelec en
banc ruled that they could not issue digital signatures by the BEIs
because the poll body will only decide on the list of BEIs early
next year, which is “too close to the elections to allow for the
issuance of personal digital signatures.” The Comelec in the
resolution added that “the use of personal signatures exposes the
BEIs to higher probabilities of coercion, violence and bribery.”
Election paraphernalia
As of this writing, the Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) of
the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has yet to award the
contracts for the procurement of various goods and services that
will be needed in the 2013 midterm elections.
Bidding conferences were held for this purpose but to date, no
contract has been awarded to purchase the items.
Following are the goods and services for which public biddings have
been conducted:
CF cards
After two failed biddings and tests that yielded unsuccessful
results, the SBAC has conducted an opening of sealed bids for
compact flash cards (CF cards; data storage devices for the PCOS
machines) on December 8, 2012, the result of which is yet to be
announced through the Comelec website via a resolution.
For other consumables such as thermal paper and markers, as well as
external rechargeable batteries, winning bidders have been
determined but the notices of award for the suppliers have not been
issued yet.
Ballots
The Comelec deputized the National Printing Office (NPO) to conduct
the bidding for the ballots that will be used in the May 2013
elections. The winning bidder for the supply and printing of ballots
was the joint venture of Holy Family Printing Corp. and Canon
Marketing Philippines.
According to news reports, these ballots will include the names of
the 36 organizations that were either disqualified from the party
list or were not granted accreditation to run for the midterm
elections next year. The poll body was obliged to allow the
inclusion of these organizations after they were able to secure
status quo ante orders from the Supreme Court (SC). Per Comelec
Resolution no. 9591 promulgated on December 19, the party-list
groups/coalitions whose Petitions were denied by the Comelec but
were able to secure status quo ante order from the Supreme Court
will be allowed to participate in the raffle to determine their
order of listing on the ballot. The raffle will be held on January
4, 2013 at the Comelec main office.
Ballot boxes
The Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) has allowed the Comelec to
re-use for the 2013 midterm elections the 57,255 ballot boxes that
were used in the 2010 polls. Earlier, out of the more than 82,000
total of ballot boxes used, the PET kept in its custody 76,340
ballot boxes in relation to the protest case by Interior Secretary
Mar Roxas against Vice President Jejomar Binay.
The remaining 24,745 ballot boxes will be bid out by the Comelec.
The allocated amount for the procurement of additional ballot boxes
is Php 290,214,400.00.
Ballot packaging
A former Comelec lawyer recently claimed that the ballot packaging
services being procured by the Commission is overpriced. Atty.
Melchor Magdamo, the same ‘whistle blower’ on the ballot secrecy
folder contract controversy in 2010, said that the allocation is too
much considering that the service will only involve basically
wrapping the ballots before they are deployed to the different
voting precincts all over the country.
Magdamo added that the service should only cost around Php 500.00
for each of the 82,000 bundles of ballots, or a total of Php 40-50
million. Comelec’s budget for this contract is Php 291,580,444.82.
Ms. Victoria Dulcera, head of the SBAC secretariat, said Magdamo
should show proof for his allegations. Comelec chairman Brilliantes
had earlier denied that the budget for ballot packaging is
overpriced. He confirmed the increase, but he attributed it to the
inclusion of warehousing and transporting the packaged ballots after
they have been vacuum-packed.
Transmission of results
Smartmatic-TIM Corp. was declared the winning bidder for
transmission modems, with the lowest calculated bid at Php 10,305.12
per unit, or a total of Php 154,576,800.00. The item was bid out
with a budget of Php 154,576,800.00 for 15,000 units of transmission
modems, to be used in electronically transmitting election results
from the polling places to Comelec's servers.
The other supplier, Mega Data Corp. was declared ineligible by the
SBAC technical working group due to insufficiencies in the
documentary requirement when their bid offer was evaluated during
the opening of bids.
The transmission modem contract is different from the contract for
the transmission service. There were two bidding conferences that
were held for the Electronic Results Transmission Services (ERTS).
The first was held on August 27, 2012, where only one company
participated. The only company that submitted its bid proposal was
Blue Media Communications, Inc., which was later declared as
ineligible by the TWG for deficiencies in their documentary
requirements.
The second bidding was held on October 10, 2012, when no company
submitted their bid proposal, hence the failure of the second
bidding. The SBAC is yet to come out with their next move on the
matter. The Comelec has budgeted Php 405,423,200.00 for the ERTS.
Lease of warehouse for PCOS machines
The Comelec SBAC is yet to take further action after the winning
bidder in the second bidding of this procurement was disqualified
due to non-compliance with the requirement of Comelec that this
particular service should not be sub-contracted or sub-leased.
After scrutiny by the technical working group (TWG) of the Comelec
SBAC, it was established that the space or lot being offered by the
joint venture of Storage Solutions, Inc. and Asa Color and
Chemicals, Inc. is owned by JY and Sons Realty Co. Inc. (and not by
any of the two companies in the venture) as evidenced by the Tax
Declaration Certificate from the Assessor’s Office of the City of
Dasmariñas, Cavite.
Meanwhile, Comelec has sent security details to the warehouse in
Cabuyao, Laguna where the Smartmatic counting machines are kept
following the alleged threats of forced eviction by the owners of
the warehouse. Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. was reported as
saying that the warehouse owners wanted the poll body to renew their
lease contract for another three years, but Brillantes said that
they will need the facility for only until June next year. Their
contract for the current warehousing services expired on September
30, 2012. To resolve this issue and invoking its mandate, the
Comelec has decided to expropriate the property for their
warehousing requirement.
Call center
The Comelec is set to conduct a public bidding on January 14, 2013
for its National Support Center (NSC). The NSC will be the Comelec’s
call center that will be set up to address text messages and calls
from Comelec field personnel regarding operational issues, and PCOS
Technical Support Supervisors regarding technical issues concerning
the counting machines. The budget for the project is Php
131,040,000.00.
Voters registration
The Comelec reported early December that it has purged almost
300,000 from the voters' list in the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao (ARMM) after the election registration board (ERB) hearings
in late November. The poll body conducted a general registration in
the region from July 9-18, requiring already registered voters to
apply anew, and accommodating new registrants. A first wave of
cleansing was done in August wherein 236,489 were purged -- 33,778
because the applicants were minors, and the rest because they
registered twice or more at different precincts. After the ERB
hearing, 43,588 more were delisted, bringing the total of
disqualified voters to 280,077. Of the total disqualified voters,
29,304 were found to be below voting age, while 250,773 were double
or multiple registrants. These applicants were reportedly found
after a post-verification process using an Automated Fingerprint
Identification System (AFIS). The Comelec reportedly discovered more
ineligible registrants in the Maguindanao and Lanao del Norte areas
than in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi areas. Almost one-fifth of the
registrants were purged, leaving some 1.2 million valid voters
compared to the past election with 1.7 million voters in the ARMM.
The Comelec said it is considering possible penalties against the
multiple registrants.
Regarding the AFIS, the Comelec and the Senate clarified that the
bill requiring biometrics capture (photographs, fingerprints,
signatures and other identifiable features) during registration is
meant for the 2016 elections. There was a concern that if the
bill were to be signed into law before the 2013 elections, the more
than 8 million registered voters whose biometrics data have not been
captured shall be disenfranchised. The Senate and the House of
Representatives have already approved of the measure. The proposal
is seen as a way to eliminate irregularities such as double
registrants. Sen. Pimentel earlier said that the implementation of
biometrics data capture “will allow a thorough cleansing of the
national voters’ registry that will reduce, if not eliminate,
cheating," and will ensure that election results “are reflective of
the genuine will of the people.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it was able
to register 398,554 new overseas voters, bringing the total of OAV
registrants for the 2013 elections to 988,384, falling short of the
1 million target earlier set by the DFA and Comelec. The DFA however
said that this is a record number compared with overseas voters
registered for recent past elections.
More than 230,000 overseas voters, however, are in danger of being
delisted. On December 4, the Comelec issued a resolution encouraging
overseas voters who failed to vote in the 2007 and 2010 elections to
file a manifestation of intent to vote in May with the Philippine
diplomatic posts covering their places of residence, or risk being
stricken off from the voters list. They were given only until
December 21 to do so. The same resolution encouraged all overseas
voters to check the status of their registration at the Comelec
website and make the necessary manifestation. The Comelec has
reportedly extended the deadline to file the manifestation of intent
to vote to January 11, 2013.
Overseas voting
With regard the voting, the Comelec has identified seven posts where
the election will be automated in May 2013: Hong Kong, Singapore,
Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Riyadh and Jeddah
in Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Only Hong Kong and Singapore had
automated election in 2010. Of newly registered voters from 2011 to
2012, Hong Kong and Singapore have the most number in the Asia
Pacific region, with 19,760 and 9,143, respectively. Dubai has the
most number of registered voters in the Middle East with 22,374;
Kuwait has 11,194; Riyadh, 9,560; Abu Dhabi, 5,388; and Jeddah,
1,591. In an interview with GMA News, Comelec Commissioner Lucenito
Tagle said they are allocating 37 PCOS machines for the seven
polling places. Each PCOS is capable of recording the ballots of
10,000 voters. He said the number of PCOS for each place would
depend on the number of voters who registered. Tagle said they would
divide the number of registered voters on a polling place by the
10,000-voter capacity of each PCOS to come up with the number of
PCOS for each.
(Various news sources; Comelec)
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