If we want to ensure credible election results, we must guard the printing and safekeeping of the first 8 copies of ERs (election returns) at the (clustered) precinct level prior to hooking-up the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan) machine online.
This was the suggestion made by former COMELEC Chairman Christian Monsod this morning when asked about how we can generate confidence on this coming Monday’s first automated national and local elections.
At the closing hour of election day, at about 6pm, the PCOS will automatically refuse accepting ballots, finalize the tally results and print 30 copies of ERs.
The first 8 physical copies of election returns (along with the access to servers) will go to the following:
1. COMELEC
2. Congress
3. PPCRV (Citizen’s Arm)
4. Dominant Majority (Lakas-Kampi-CMD)
5. Dominant Minority (since the NP-NPC coalition has been invalidated, LP becomes the dominant minority)
6. Provincial Board of Canvassers
7. Municipal Board of Canvassers
8. KBP
Monsod says that following the assurance that the ‘source code’ (software program) is clean and that the copy of the program stored in a Bangko Sentral safety deposit box is the exact same program stored/used by the PCOS (which can be verified by a ‘hash test’ to be done by COMELEC before the elections), the immediate printing of ‘untainted’ clustered precinct-level results and securing it will be our assurance that should an automated ‘Garci’ happen from municipal level upwards, we will be confident that a manual count verification would be reliable.
He adds that once data is transmitted, it may be prone to ‘manipulation’ and depending on the safeguards installed, even a third party may hack into it and alter the results through digital ‘padding and shaving’ (aka ‘dagdag-bawas’).
Why data must go through a Smartmatic ‘central hub’ must also be clarified. Monsod thinks the Supreme Court, in addition to compelling the COMELEC to release their overall election preparations including but not limited to contingency plans and RMA guidelines, must also ask the COMELEC to justify whether it is indeed necessary for a third-party like Smartmatic to have access to the data transmission and why data can’t go straight to COMELEC servers.
Citing a recent testing where data results were in conflict with manual count, Smartmatic was said to have resolved the issue by accessing the PCOS remotely. This now raises the question: If remote correction/fixing can be done, can this mean remote alteration of results be done as well?
In the end, Monsod says that given the recent hiccups encountered in PCOS testing, a successful automated election is still possible if field implementation is done properly. The success of our first attempt at automation now rests in the teachers and staff who will man the polling place. If this election becomes successful, we owe it to these heroes who risk even their very lives in this democratic exercise.
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