April 12th, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
The overseas voting in Hongkong was a success, though not with minor glitches.
The first and more serious glitch is the low voter turnout. The second glitch which was easily and quickly remedied had to do with “humidity” affecting the readability of a couple of ballots.
LOW VOTER TURN OUT
According to 1oo Araw dot com:
4,141 overseas Filipinos have so far cast their votes in the overseas absentee voting in 93 embassies and consulates of the Philippines, according to a report by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The number is still very low. It is just 0.7 percent of a total of 589,830 registered overseas absentee voters for the May 2010 elections.
Although much has been said about OFWs being a new and powerful voting block, it seems that most of our OFWs were unable (or unwilling) to cast their votes.
Jeddah, Riyadh, and Hongkong seem to have the lowest turn outs based on the number of registered voters and the actual turn out.
Berlin has the highest turn out based on the number of registered voters and the actual turn out.
“HUMIDITY” IN HONGKONG DELAYS VOTING
Let’s say you are in a hot and humid country and you store something in a cold room (either a refrigerator or an airconditioned room). Then you take that something out into a warm and humid environment. What happens?
Depending on the amount of humidity in the air, you will notice that THAT something which you took from the fridge or airconditioned room begins to collect moisture. Condensation happens.
Just imagine Beer Below Zero on a warm night in Manila. The frost that clings to the bottle when it is brought out of the freezer immediately turns into beads of moisture.
According to an account of someone who was at the OAV in Hongkong, the ballots used for the OAV were apparently stored inside a very cold room and when it was brought out into the warm, humid Hongkong air, moisture collected on the ballots. When paper gets in contact with moisture, it expands and as in the case of the ballots, it did the same thing — making it hard for the machines to read it properly.
This problem stalled the voting process in Hongkong for about two hours. Two voters weren’t able to cast their votes immediately.
In any case, once the ballots became acclimatized to the Hongkong air, the people were able to use the rest of the ballots without a hitch and the machines read them perfectly.
In any case, the same thing (cold storage, humidy, and condensation) won’t happen with the ballots in the Philippines. The ballots won’t be stored in an airconditioned room and will already be in room temperature when the voting begins.
Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, Comelec and Henrietta De Villa, PPCRV noted the capability of Smartmatic-TIM to respond to contigencies:
Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said he was not alarmed by the breakdown of the machines. “We saw this happened and the back up kicked in right away,” he said.
De Villa said “one good thing was that they were ready for contingency matters.”
Oh… I am sure, that despite having remedied the glitches, the enemies of poll automation (those who benefit from manual automation and its fraud) will definitely come up with their DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS AGAIN.
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April 2nd, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
The ballots that will be used in the Philippine’s first automated elections will still have special UV markings that will be used to make sure that the ballots are authentic. BEIs will be issued UV lamps which will make the UV markings visible and thus enable them to verify the authenticity of the ballots.
This is contrary to the statement made by Liberal Party campaign manager Butz Abad who recently said that fake ballots can now pass through the PCOS machines.
He said that the ultraviolet safety features of the PCOS machines had been disabled. “Fake ballots can pass through the machines.’
Comelec Comissioner Gregorio Larrazabal clarified that BEI’s will be issued UV lamps which will be used to verify the presence of special UV marking on the ballots.
“For me what is important is there is still a way to authenticate the UV ink. The ballot itself is authenticated by the PCOS machines,” he said.
The special UV markings on the ballots is ONLY ONE of SEVERAL security features that will be used to ensure the authenticity of ballots that will be used in the 2010 elections.
Ballots are encoded to work with just one specific machine through a bar code system. The ballots are sealed and kept sealed until election day. The PCOS machines that will be used to read the filled out ballots are programmed to receive only a specific number of ballots.
Even if it were possible to flood the country with fake ballots, the perpetrator of such an operation would have to know the specific bar code for each precinct where he intends to send the fake ballots to and the specific number of ballots per precinct. Even then, the perpetrator would need to have the cooperation of 3 or more people in each precinct, so that they’ll use the fake ballots instead of the real ballots.
False alarms were raised over the possibility of fake ballots flooding the system when Consortium on Electoral Reforms executive director Ramon Casiple said that Comelec decided to shut off the UV readers of the PCOS machines after they failed to read many ballots during the laboratory test last January.
As it turns out, Casiple was ABSENT in the Comelec meeting where it was decided that BEI’s would be given UV lamps which would be used to manually verify the authenticity of the ballots.
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March 13th, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
Singapore included in automated polls for overseas absentee voting
By Pia Lee-Brago
The Philippine Star March 09, 2010
MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has decided to include Singapore in the conduct of automated elections for overseas absentee voting (OAV), the Philippine Embassy in Singapore said yesterday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Hong Kong was the only other foreign service post in Asia where automated elections will be conducted. Singapore has the second highest number of registered overseas absentee voters in Asia at 31,851.
Hong Kong has 95,355 overseas absentee voters.
OAV will be conducted for 30 days, from April 10 to May 10, in all other Philippine embassies and consulates either by postal or manual voting.
Nine precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines will be delivered to the Philippine embassy in Singapore.
At the end of the 30-day voting period, the poll results will be transmitted to the Comelec in the Philippines a few hours after the close of voting.
Philippine Ambassador to Singapore Minda Cruz reminded registered voters to vote as early as possible.
Cruz called on all registered overseas absentee voters to exercise their right of suffrage early, preferably during the first two weeks of voting, instead of waiting for the last week, to avoid long queues in the embassy.
Overseas absentee voters can only vote for the national elective positions of president, vice president, 12 senators and one (1) party-list representative, but not for local positions.
Registered voters in Singapore will be required to vote in person at the Philippine embassy at 20 Nassim Road from 9 am to 5 pm, except on the last day of voting when it will close at 6 pm.
Voters must bring their valid Philippine passport and identification card (PR card, S-Pass, E-Pass or Work Permit).
Voters can check if his/her name is in the Certified List of Overseas Absentee Voters (CLOAV) found in the Comelec website (www.comelec.gov.ph). Only those whose name appears in the CLOAV will be allowed to vote.
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March 8th, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
The Philippine Daily Inquirer should be commended for coming up with articles that show how easy and fuss free it will be to vote in May 2010 using the new automated election system.
Bring along ‘cheat sheets,’ voters urged
By Kristine L. Alave
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:06:00 03/08/2010
MANILA, Philippines—The key to a worry-free electronic vote is a “cheat sheet.”
Bathsheba Valenzuela considers herself an expert on automated voting and scoffs at people who say that using the 25-inch-long ballot and the voting machine is fraught with difficulties for senior citizens.
“It’s easy as long as you follow the instructions. I’m 58, yes, but why would it be difficult for me?” she said after participating in a mock election conducted by GMA News at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.
It was the first time that Valenzuela, a housewife, voted in a mock election.
The exercise was part of the network’s voter education campaign for the country’s first national computerized elections on May 10.
GMA News set up a simulated voting precinct, with voting areas and desks, ballot secrecy folders, sample ballots and Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines.
Officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting were also present to answer questions from the public.
Valenzuela, who was accompanied by her 43-year-old friend, Fe Cisnero, said it took her less than five minutes to fill up her ballot and feed it into the counting machine.
All about shading oval
Noting that there were too many names on the ballot, Valenzuela and Cisnero said the trick was to have a “cheat sheet”—a prepared list of preferred candidates—so that not much time would be spent figuring out who to vote for.
“When you go and vote, you should be sure of your choices,” Cisnero said.
Instead of writing names, voters under the new system will just shade the oval space beside the candidates’ names.
The 8 x 25 inch ballot contains the names of all the candidates in national and local contests. The ballot for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is two inches longer.
After filling out the ballot, the voter then feeds it to the PCOS machine, which records and counts their marks. At the end of the voting day, the machine will print the election returns and transmit the results to canvassing centers.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said the poll body realized that people were skeptical of the technology at first, attributing it to the “fear of unknown.”
Now that the poll body and its private sector partners are stepping up their education campaigns and the 82,200 electronic voting machines made by Smartmatic-TIM Corp. have arrived, that apprehension is slowly slipping away, he said.
Now that the public is getting a chance to see the machines and use it, they have come to realize that they won’t have to do much with the paper and the PCOS machine. “The technology is very familiar to them,” Jimenez said.
Comelec officials advised voters to carefully shade their ballots and refrain from putting ambiguous marks or folding it, otherwise the PCOS machine will spit out the paper.
Don’t play with ballot
Leo Lim, a Comelec assistor, said there were voters who made ambiguous marks to see how the machine would react.
“They should not play with it on Election Day,” he said, noting that it would make the voting time longer.
If the machine refuses to read the ballot, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) and the voter will have to check the ballot for stray or ambiguous markings.
The voter is allowed to feed the ballot into the machine four times, according to the Comelec’s General Instructions for BEIs.
James Barcelona, a cook, said he believed that the technology would make it harder for election manipulators to tamper with the election results.
“It’s easier than the manual. It is less confusing and it’s fast,” he said.
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March 1st, 2010 by Malayang Halalan
March rolls in on good news — ALL OF THE SMARTMATIC-TIM PCOS MACHINES HAVE BEEN DELIVERED.
The delivery of the PCOS Machines are the most tangible sign that the 2010 Automated Elections is pushing through despite all the brickbats thrown and predictions of doom that were divined.
All 82,200 PCOS Machines in the Country – SMARTMATIC TIM
MANILA , Philippines (Feb 27, 2010) — On Saturday February 27th, all the required 82,200 PCOS machines are already in the country.
Cesar Flores, President of Smartmatic Asia Pacific said that the last 13,580 units of PCOS machines arrived at the International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) on February 27 completing the required number of machines to be used for the May 10 automated elections.
“We are proud to announce that all the PCOS machines are already in the Philippines, and the implementation calender is being kept as planned” Flores said.
A shipment of 7,200-PCOS aboard a Yan Ming vessel (YMLU4831562) docked at the ICTSI terminal at 7:00AM today. A few hours later, a Wan Hai vessel (WHLU4082939) laden with 6,380-PCOS units arrived for docking.
Flores said that with all the PCOS machines already in the country, the full automation of the May elections is guaranteed.
According to Flores, SMARTMATIC TIM had consistently shown good faith by its compliance with deadlines.
“This latest delivery means that all the 76,000 precincts all over the Philippines will each get a PCOS machine, with another 6,000 spare machines on standby,” Flores said, adding that “We reiterate our commitment to the Filipino people: the automation system will provide fast and accurate elections.”
But despite the good news, certain personalities claiming to be guardians and watchdogs of automated elections are expected to pick nits and bones.
Their real objective is not to ensure that the country’s first automated elections happens without a hitch, but rather, to scuttle and derail this historic elections for a number of reasons:
- so that they can put in place their favored automated election system which doesn’t pass the requirements set by RA9369.
- so that their political patron can take advantage of the many flaws of a manual election. (There is actually an exchange of e-mails showing the deep connection between so-called watchdogs and a certain candidate.)
- so that they can promote and establish themselves as the foremost authorities in automated election fraud, thereby reaping tons of cash in exchange for their expert opinions in whatever electoral disputes that will be filed.
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