WITH the 2016 national elections in the horizon, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has ramped up preparations for the political exercise. Among these is the continuation of the Automated Election System (AES) based on Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines successfully used in 2010 and 2013. Certain quarters, however, are still pushing for an Open Election System that will combine manual voting and precinct-level counting with computerized canvassing at the municipal, provincial and national levels.
The Comelec decision to continue using the AES-PCOS system appears to be a sound one. In fact, it enjoys bipartisan support among lawmakers. Rep. Fredenil Castro of Capiz, chairman of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, believes that PCOS critics should just help the Comelec improve the automated system as they have failed to present “incontrovertible evidence to substantiate their claim” of electoral fraud, and the poll watchdog handled the past two automated elections very well. In the absence of convincing proof of fraud, Castro said, “There is no reason stakeholders would want a return to manual voting.”
Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City said he was initially opposed to the use of PCOS machines in 2010, but then changed his mind after witnessing the accuracy of the units as a member of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET). “It’s really accurate and reliable,” the HRET member said. “It made our job of resolving election cases easier and faster.”
Party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe of Ako Bicol, likewise, denounced the incessant claims of electoral fraud in the 2010 and 2013 polls, and pointed out: “The worldwide trend is toward automation and we should not again go back to jurassic age where outcome of election results are known only after several weeks [or] even months.”
ParaĖaque City Rep. Gustavo Tambunting of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance personally vouched for the accuracy of the PCOS machines as proven by his victory over his pro-administration rival. “It would be a nightmare and terrible decision to go back to the old system of manual counting of votes, which takes forever and which allows miscounts and ballot switching and snatching.”
Another opposition solon—Rep. Sherwin Gatchalian of Valenzuela City—said that staging a semi-manual 2016 balloting would be “like going back to the Dark Ages.”
The call for the return to traditional manual voting is also opposed by think tanks such as the Social Research Institute (SRI). Citing the results of a study, SRI said that reverting to the manual system might cause a legitimacy crisis for whoever succeeds President Aquino in 2016, similar to the one that hounded then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo after the highly controversial 2004 polls.
“The antiquated electoral system anchored on manual counting had been the source of several other legitimacy crises,” according to the study commissioned by SRI. Using election forensics and accepted statistical principles, the study debunked the critics’ claim of a systematic 60:30:10 winning ratio in the 2013 polls, in which the AES/PCOS system was supposedly programmed to come up with winners at a uniform proportion of 60 percent administration candidates, 30 percent from the opposition and 10 percent independent bets.
Poll observer Democracy Watch also blasted critics of automation, saying that such a “regression” will only benefit election operators and cheaters. According to the group, the shift to AES has modernized the country’s electoral system as it replaced the manual way of voting and canvassing, which history has shown was prone to cheating: “Our experience in 2013 was successful in reinstilling integrity in the election process. The results were reliable, efficient, and swift.”
Prominent election lawyer Romulo Macalintal has, likewise, vouched for the accuracy of the PCOS/AES setup, as well as the integrity and credibility of the balloting in 2010: “His [President Aquino] opponents did not contest his election when they all conceded defeat,” Macalintal argued. “None of them ever said that they were cheated by PCOS machines.”
Macalintal said all of the infotech experts crying fraud “miserably failed to show proof that any of the more than 80,000 PCOS machines was ever hacked or their results compromised.”
Moreover, he said all election protests involving local posts have been dismissed because the protesters or poll losers failed to present any material discrepancy between the PCOS results and the results of the physical recount of the ballots.
The best argument that the PCOS count in 2010 was accurate, added Macalintal, was that Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II has “not been actively pursuing” his election protest against Vice President Jejomar C. Binay that he filed before the Supreme Court in July 2010.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.