A Call for Open, Transparent, and Participatory Polls

RESTORE THE PEOPLE’S TRUST IN THE 2010 ELECTIONS:
A Call for Open, Transparent, and Participatory Polls

A Joint Public Statement
For Open, Transparent, and Participatory 2010 Elections
March 18, 2009
Quezon City, Philippines


he people’s trust and confidence in the electoral system must be brought
back in the May 2010 automated polls – the first automated national and
local elections in the Philippines. The only way this can be done is to make the
automated elections free, open, transparent, and with full people’s participation.

We are concerned that this is not being addressed by the Commission on
Elections (Comelec) through its use of the Optical Mark Reader (OMR)
technology. As proven in the August 2008 ARMM elections – for that matter, in
many electoral exercises in other countries - this technology is vulnerable to
hacking, technical errors, delays, and other problems. And as the Comelec
Advisory Council (CAC) itself admitted in a report in October 2008, the poll body
is ill-equipped for the technological requirements of the coming elections.

Worse, this automated technology does not guarantee an open and transparent
election. OMR uses internal tallying thus preventing voters from knowing whether
their votes are counted let alone from tracking poll results through electronic
transmission, canvassing, consolidation, and finally declaration of election
winners. Because every step is supposed to be quick, all these will make citizens’
poll watching more taxing if not a futile exercise.

While all these months the Comelec has prioritized the procurement of
automated election equipment for the 2010 polls no attention has been paid on
how to address the fraud mechanisms that are still in place all over the country.
The use of automated technology will come to naught unless the poll body comes
up with effective measures to make these powerful fraud mechanisms irrelevant.
Such fraud mechanisms will come into play – possibly with greater force and
vengeance – in the coming automated polls and no amount of modern technology
will ensure the coming elections to be free, honest, and democratic. It will lead to
wholesale electronic cheating. Election cheats from the national to local elections
will continue to be unaccountable, as usual.

While there is still time the Comelec as well as Congress should welcome other
proposals aimed at making the coming elections open, transparent, and
participatory. One such proposal, the Open Election System (OES) combines
manual precinct-level voting and counting with automated canvassing of votes at
the city/municipality, provincial, and national levels. Aside from being a lot
cheaper compared to the OMR, what makes this automated technology open,
transparent, and participatory is the posting of election results on a public
website that will be constantly accessible to all interested parties including the
voters themselves as well as poll watchers and candidates. This system opens
more guarantees for the verification of election data as well as ample time for the
filing of election protests against anticipated widespread irregularities.

Moreover, the OES system complies with RA 9369 which calls for
“transparency, credibility, fairness, and accuracy of elections” and prescribes
“the adoption and use of the most suitable technology of demonstrated capability
taking into account the situation prevailing in the area and the funds available for
the purpose.”

This proposed system is adaptable to Philippine conditions and promotes the
voters’ right to open and participatory election. It also requires less tedious and
inexpensive training for both election officials and voters - so unlike in the OMR
system. Based on the Comelec calendar, the only time the public and media will
know the final customized and configured OMR election system is on February
22, 2010. This leaves only two months devoted to voters’ education and scrutiny
by the public on the final configuration – contrary to the CAC’s recommendation
of at least six months!



MOVEMENT FOR GOOD Center for People Empowerment
GOVERNANCE (MGG) in Governance (CenPEG)


COMPUTING SOCIETY COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS
of the PHILIPPINES (CSP) UNION (CPU)


TransparentElections.org.ph


March 18, 2009