‘Wrong’ ink used in printing ballots’ UV security markings

(Updated 3:49 AM) Smartmatic-TIM reportedly failed to supply correct ink for ultraviolet (UV) security markings printed on ballots, a poll official said. As a result, automated poll machines may be unable to check whether ballots are genuine or not. This has forced the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to use handheld UV lamps to verify ballots’ authenticity, thereby introducing another process in the automated polls that may confuse voters further. This was disclosed to GMANews.TV by Ramon Casiple, a member of the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) Advisory Council. Smartmatic-TIM, which supplied automated voting equipment, and the Comelec should have first tested the UV ink with the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines to ensure that poll equipment would be able to read them, Casiple added. "Nagbabago yung intensity... magkaiba yung specs ng reader sa specs ng printer (The intensity of the ink changes, so the specifications of the UV reader is different from that of the printer)," he said. Ultraviolet marks are one of the security features in the ballot which will show that it is authentic. Other security features include the unique ballot paper, a bar code, Comelec markings, and the unique precinct-based numbers on the ballot. The PCOS machines are originally expected not just to count and check the votes as marked on the ballots, but also to verify genuine ballots and reject counterfeit ones. Both the Comelec and Smartmatic failed to inform the advisory council when they discovered the problem last January, Casiple added. "They never told us. That's a technical question, we should have been told about that. Di ko alam kung sadya yun (I don't know whether that was intentional)," he said. Smartmatic spokesman Gene Gregorio said that he was not aware of any problems with the ink used in the UV markings. UV lamps would be used because the ballots’ security features were not aligned properly and could not be read by the PCOS machines’ UV scanners. "There's nothing wrong with the ink," he told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. He added that the advisory council was not immediately informed of the changes because they had to act on the problem right away to avoid any delays in the automation preparations. The company only follows whatever the Comelec decides, he said. Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, who heads the poll body's committee on automation, did not categorically deny or confirm Casiple's claims. However, when asked if Smartmatic would be penalized for supposedly supplying the "wrong" UV ink, he said that the matter still has to be discussed by the Comelec en banc. "I don’t want to preempt the en banc because at this point in time that question it has to be the en banc that will decide," he told reporters in an interview. He likewise emphasized that the important thing is that there still is a method to verify the UV ink. "Nakita ko na (I have already seen it). Personally I was able to run a UV lamp on a ballot," he said. Meanwhile, Casiple said that he is worried that the use of UV lamps would lead to some confusion on election day. "Problema yun (That's a problem), there's human interevention," he said. Larrazabal said there should be no problem with the manual verification. "It’s not rocket science. You get the UV lamp, run through the ballots that’s it," he said. Earlier, Larrazabal said the poll body will use lamps to manually verify the existence of UV markings on the ballots. High-speed printing of the ballots reportedly caused the security feature to move out of alignment, precluding PCOS machines from reading them and determining their authenticity. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV