NGOs still unconvinced of ‘fraud-free’ automated polls

Akbayan party-list group and other non-government organizations on Wednesday raised concern on the possibility of new forms of cheating that may occur during the 2010 automated elections. Lawyer Ibarra Gutierrez III of the University of the Philippines said the lack in transparency on the part of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) consortium might give abusive politicians an opportunity to commit electoral fraud or even cause failure of elections in 2010. Gutierrez said the non-disclosure of the source code used in the automated counting machines by Smartmatic-TIM, the consortium which bagged the P7.2 billion poll automation contract, may allow “built-in" cheating mechanisms in the coming polls. “This is the biggest automation project in the world. The non-disclosure of the source code really raises concern on the integrity on the program to be used," he said in a forum in Quezon City. The forum was organized by Akbayan, the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform, and the Active Citizen Foundation. Another non-governmental organization, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (Cenpeg), has filed a petition before the Supreme Court earlier this month, asking the high court to compel Comelec to make the source codes available to the public. Lawyer Ferdinand Rafanan of the Comelec Legal Department meanwhile defended the poll automation, saying that it has complied with minimum system requirements stated in Republic Act 9369 or the Election Automation Law. “The Supreme Court has already affirmed automated elections. Just trust the Comelec that we would ensure clean, honest and orderly elections in 2010," he said. Gutierrez likewise raised concern on the absence of any means for the voters to ensure that the votes they cast were counted correctly. “How will we know if our votes were counted correctly? There is nothing we can do but trust the machine," he said. The lawyer also said that the Comelec still has not clarified how the 82,000 machines be used during the elections are to be secured and safely stored days before the election. Gutierrez added that while the practice of manually adding and removing votes in favor of a certain candidate may become “virtually impossible" due to the automation, other “traditional" forms of cheating such as vote-padding and casting of unused ballots to increase the votes of a candidate may still continue. Former Akbayan Rep. Etta Rosales, for her part, said that the poll automation would remain immaterial unless the Comelec does something to clean up voters’ lists across the country. “Hangga’t hindi natin nalilinis ang voters’ registration lists, huwag na tayong mag-usap ng automation (Unless we can cleanse voters' registration lists, let's not even talk about automation)," she said. Rosales cited the example of Taguig City where almost 700 voters over the age of 100 are still in the voters’ list. “(I ask) the Comelec to take immediate action with respect to this anomaly. There are more ‘Taguigs’ outside Metro Manila. Let us not waste time," she said. - GMANews.TV