The Commission on Elections has announced the completion of deliveries of all the Precint Count OPtical Scan Machines to be used in the elections in May. The final delivery was made February 27, one day before the deadline. Smartmatic delivered about 82,000 optical scan machines.

With the completion of the machines, the commission is set to carry out the customization process.

The delivery of the machines encountered various difficulties such as bad weather and tight shipping schedules. The biggest cause of delay, however, was the petition filed by the group Concerned Citizens' Movement or CCM.Just so you all know the Supreme Court hearing on the petition to nullify the poll automation contract ran for two months.

Both Comelec and Smartmatic are now of course feeling vindicated. Officials says this only proves that they can meet deadlines.

Here are some of the more important points:

• SECTION 1. Period for testing and sealing of PCOS machines. – At least three (3) days before April 10, 2010 in the case of overseas absentee voting, or before the May 10, 2010 national and local elections, in the case of the elections here in the Philippines, the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI)/Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEI) shall convene in their assigned polling places to test and seal the PCOS machines.
• SEC. 8. PCOS machines to be opened on May 10, 2010 or on April 10, 2010 for overseas absentee voting. – PCOS machines shall only be opened on May 10, 2010 or, for overseas voting, on April 10, 2010, and before the voting starts and in the presence of watchers, if any.

The document provides specific details on how the testing and sealing will be carried  out. Those who are really interested in knowing the procedures may review the resolution in the Comelec's website.

On another matter, the Commission has already posted digital copies of the ballot templates in its website. This was done on the request of some candidates who wish to come out with  their own sample ballots. The Comelec's decision is stated in Resolution No. 8760.

The ballot templates may be viewed on the Comelec website as well. Voters are advised to check them out. Just follow these links:

• National Ballot Template for non-ARMM areas
• National Ballot Template for ARMM areas
• Local Ballot Templates

Yesterday, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal presented the new ballot boxes that will be used together with the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines. Larrazabal explains that the re-design was done to protect the security features of the new ballots. The following excerpt from an abs-cbnnews.com report gives us the details.

Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal on Tuesday showed reporters the official ballot box to be used for the first nationwide automated polls. Made of durable plastic and resembles a big trash bin, it is 36 inches tall, 34 inches long, and 20 inches in width.

While the sample units had big transparent windows on both sides, the official boxes will only have much smaller, translucent windows. The windows are made of unbreakable glass.

Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said, "There is nothing wrong with changing the design of the box. Now, it is designed for addtional measure of security."

Jimenez explained that the ultraviolet ink in the ballots is susceptible to sunlight and could make images and letters fade. Thus, the old design where much bigger and transparent windows were used will expose the ballots more to the sunlight.

Faded ballots, he said, "will give us a problem if a recount has to be carried out later on."

Jimenez said that the change in the design of the ballot box is for additional measure of security. "What's important is that the ballots remain authentic."

Earlier, the Comelec assured that the ballots to be used in the May elections all have enough security features. The commission came out with the assurance after it was revealed that the ballot for the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will no longer have ultraviolet markings and 2-D barcodes.

Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez explains that they decided not to include those features anymore to avoid any more delays. Here's an excerpt from a gmanews.tv report.

The National Printing Office’s (NPO) ultraviolet marks and 2-D bar codes were withheld from ballots for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) because the printers had not been configured in time for printing, poll body spokesperson James Jimenez told GMANews.TV.

“They were not put in place because they were given to us rather late," he said.

Moreover, placing the NPO’s own bar codes would delay ballot printing since it would require another round of tests by SysTest Labs, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal added.

“It will delay the actual printing itself. The 2-D bar code has to be integrated…it has to be certified again," he said in a press briefing on Monday.

For clarification, the markings that were no longer included were NPO markings. The ballots will still have Comelec and Smartmatic markings, which based on the Comelec's explanation should be sufficient to ensure ballot security.The important thing here is that even without the NPO markings the ballots in question will still be read by the PCOS machines and be considered valid.

Smartmatic, however, wants to clarify that with regard to the printing of ballots Smartmatic's involvement is limited to providing the "printing infrastructure and capacity." In essence what the company is saying is that issues concerning the printing of ballots should be directed at Comelec.

The telecommunications company has expressed apprehension, saying its facility may be compromised. Not even a proposed deployment of soldiers to secure its facility could change Globe's decision.

Obviously, this is a problem. Even Comelec Commissioner Jose Melo admits this might "disturb" the automation of the elections. I'm not sure what he meant by that exactly but it's probably not good.

Comelec and Smartmatic are now looking for a new site for the election data processing center. They are scheduled to check on another Globe facility in Clark Field, Pampanga. However, reports say that facility has already been found to be inadequate since it met only 14 of the 20 requirements set by Smartmatic.

PLDT has offered to provide a data center but only as a back-up.

The data processing center is an important component of the automated system. Comelec says this is where the votes will be consolidated.

Prior to Globe's decision, Smartmatic was already able to set up some of its servers. Apparently, installing the servers does not take too long. Hopefully, the same would be true for finding an alternate facility.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court dismissed with finality a petition to nullify the contract between Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM. Voting 13-2, the court upheld the decision it made September last year.

Here's an excerpt from an inquirer.net report:

(The court said) the Comelec did not commit grave abuse of discretion in awarding the contract to technology provider Smartmatic-TIM.

The high tribunal also found the arguments raised by petitioners H. Harry Roque, Jr. and the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) as mostly “rehash.”

Now, that's one less thing for Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM to think about. But there's more, one of which are persistent concerns about the impact of looming brownouts on the implementation of the automated system on election day.

Another issue that seems to have died down but may soon be raised again concerns the source code review. Last I heard, Comelec conducted a review last Wednesday. A friend of mine who works for a major newspaper told me that the Center for People Empowerment in Governance or CenPeg and the Automated Election System Watch or AESWatch were conspicuously absent during the whole thing.

In case you didn't know, CenPeg and AESWatch led the calls for the release of the source code for public scrutiny. It is a big wonder then why both groups simply snubbed the review.

Well, I've been scouring the net for an answer and I found a report from The Daily Tribune. Here's an excerpt.

The software program that will run the automated election’s 82,000 machines will not be trusted by voters unless the Commission on Elections (Comelec) allows a real source code review.

This was the warning issued by he Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) in response to the poll body’s move to make the software program (source code) of the automated election system (AES) available for review by political parties and interested groups.

Bobby Tuazon, CenPEG’s director for Policy Studies, in a statement, noted that the Comelec’s “source code review” is not for real and the ground rules and restrictions it has set make the activity a sham.

The review, according to Comelec, will be done under “controlled conditions” that are inconsistent with Section 12 of Republic Act 9369 which mandates the poll body for the prompt release of the source code for an independent review by citizens’ groups and parties once an AES technology is selected for implementation.

At best, Comelec will allow only a “walk through” or, worse, a mere “presentation of the results” of the source code review supposedly done by the Colorado-based SysTest labs at a cost of P70 million, Tuazon said.

“This is not the kind of review we have asked for under Section 12 of RA 9369. The review looks just like a ‘walk through’ or worse, what the reviewers will see is just the ‘results’ of the source code review done by SysTest, which is under a different section of RA 9369,” he noted.

Hmm. The hecklers are at it again.

The Commission on Elections has announced the completion of the production of Smartmatic-TIM's Precinct Count Optical Scan machines. The 25,000 machines yet to be delivered are scheduled to arrive in the country at least a week before the deadline on February 28.

The 25,000 machines will complete the 82,000 needed for the conduct of automated elections in May. So far, the Comelec has in its custody around 50,000 machines, which are now stored in a warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna.  Another 8,000 are with the Bureau of Customs while about 800 are in transit.

The Comelec says this should quell some of the concerns about the election preparations.

As soon as all 82,000 machines are here, Smartmatic-TIM will start the customization process. This should be finalized by April.

The Comelec earlier said adjustments were to be made on the ballot design particularly its size, which needs to be just right to accommodate the names of all candidates. I heard the ballots for the Autonomous Region In Muslim Mindanao will be slightly longer because it will also have Arabic translations of the candidates' names.

In the meantime, voters will have no real idea how the ballots would look like. I think it would help if the Comelec would publish photos of the ballots in their actual sizes so voters can start getting familiar with it.

For now, it would be good to thoroughly study how the voting process will go come May. The following TV ad should help.

Securing the system is one area where cooperation will be crucial. I am specifically referring to the issue raised yesterday by Comelec about the reported arrival in the country of over 5,000 units of cellphone signal jammers. Comelec spokesperson James JImenez says this presents a threat to the conduct of automated elections in May.

Here's how jammers work:

(excerpt from Wikipedia)

As with other radio jamming, cell phone jammers block cell phone use by sending out radio waves along the same frequencies that cellular phones use. This causes enough interference with the communication between cell phones and towers to render the phones unusable. On most retail phones, the network would simply appear out of range. Most cell phones use different bands to send and receive communications from towers (called full duplexing). Jammers can work by either disrupting phone to tower frequencies or tower to phone frequencies. Smaller handheld models block all bands from 800MHz to 1900MHz within a 30-foot range (9 meters). Small devices tend to use the former method, while larger more expensive models may interfere directly with the tower. The radius of cell phone jammers can range from a dozen feet for pocket models to kilometers for more dedicated units. The TRJ-89 jammer can block cellular communications for a 5-mile (8 km) radius.[1]

Actually it needs less energy to disrupt signal from tower to mobile phone, than the signal from mobile phone to the tower (also called base station), because base station is located at larger distance from the jammer than the mobile phone and that is why the signal from the tower is not so strong [2].

Older jammers sometimes were limited to working on phones using only analog or older digital mobile phone standards. Newer models such as the double and triple band jammers can block all widely used systems (CDMA, iDEN, GSM, et al.) and are even very effective against newer phones which hop to different frequencies and systems when interfered with. As the dominant network technology and frequencies used for mobile phones vary worldwide, some work only in specific regions such as Europe or North America.

Jimenez himself admits that jamming devices could be used to delay the real-time electronic transmission of voting results for automated canvassing. This is a bad thing because delays in transmission will open the system to cheating such as vote padding and/or shaving.

It's good Comelec got wind of this report. Whether it is true or not, it should really prompt the commission and Smartmatic-TIM to initiate appropriate measures. But then again that's just as far as it goes where Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM are concerned. Securing the system, after all, should involve other agencies that have more power to address external threats to poll automation.

With regard to jamming devices, the Bureau of Customs, Department of Transportation and Communications and National Telecommunications Commission should definitely get involved. Since this is an unverified report, these agencies should first investigate if there really was such a shipment.

A more pro-active approach -- since the possibility of such a threat has already been brought up anyway -- is to perhaps look into the possibility of imposing a temporary ban on the shipping, sale and use of such devices. I think that's the best that can be done for now since jammers are not illegal here in the Philippines unlike in the United States and several other countries.

Voters who want to be well-informed of how the May 10, 2010 elections will be conducted should visit these two websites: www.comelec.gov.ph and www.bagongbontante.ph I also recommend that you visit this law website: http://www.chanrobles.com/electionlawsofthephilippines.htm

Now, here is my presentation on Poll Automation 2010 based on information culled from various publicly-available official documents and sources like those posted on the Comelec website.

Getting the Voter to Vote

First things first. The voter must get to the precinct to vote. This part of the election process poll automation is powerless to address. Intimidation, terrorism, laziness and apathy can keep voters from voting. Desperate candidates who are fairly certain of losing in a locality will use intimidation and terrorism to force voters to stay in their homes on election day. An example of such evil acts would be the burning of schools on or before election day.  In places where they are popular, the desperate candidates will even transport their voters to the voting centers and bring them home. The lazy and those who don't really care about the future of our country would rather stay at home to do what they usually do on any normal day of their senseless lives.

When you go to the school or other venue that serves as a voting center, look first for your name is the list of voters and then look for  the room of your precinct.. Ask the voters' assistance desks for help. The room you went to before may not be the same room you will vote at this time around.

Go to the voting center early. Do not wait for the end of voting hours (6:00pm). The sooner the voting gets done, the sooner the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) can start telling the voting machine to count the votes and print out the results. The results will be read out loud when they are first printed. The accredited watchers will be given copies of the election results. The results paper will look like an official receipt from a cash register and will be a long roll of paper because there are many positions at stake in these elections on May 10, 2010.

The Ballot

The Comelec will print 50 million ballots. There has never been an election in Philippine history with 100 percent voter turnout or even close to it. There will be more than enough ballots on election day.

The ballot is like one big lotto card. Days before election day, list down in alphabetical order (according to surname) the names of your candidates. The names of the candidates are printed in alphabetical order on the ballot. Bring that list with you when you vote.

When the BEI gives you the ballot, make sure that none of the ovals are filled up. You should have a blank ballot. If your ballot already has shadings and markings on it, do not accept that ballot and let the watchers know that you were given a pre-filled up ballot.

Just shade the blank ovals to the left of the candidates' names. Do not use your digital camera or cellphone with camera while you are voting. You are not allowed to take pictures of the ballot you are filling up or have filled up. The presumption is that you will show that picture to someone else after you leave the precinct and that someone else could be the candidate's representative who will have a nice 'token' for your perverse 'loyalty'.

Do not make any mistakes when shading the ballot. You will not be given another ballot in case you make any mistakes in shading the ovals. The Comelec's General Instructions to the BEIs says "not more than one ballot shall be issued at one time." Follow the instructions printed on the ballot. The candidates for the national posts are all on one side while the candidates for the local elections are on the reverse side. The columns are color-coded.  For the party-list elections, the secrecy folder placed at the table will have a list of the candidate party-list groups and their corresponding numbers or acronym letters printed on the ballot.

After you choose your candidates, you will insert your ballot into the voting machine. The machine will scan both sides of the paper at the same time, as you feed the ballot into the machine. Do not force the ballot into the machine. Just let the machine take in the ballot. If the paper jams, you can re-insert it. Ask for the help of the BEI. If the BEI need technical help, the Comelec will have technical staff on stand-by at the voting centers.

If you are free, return to the precinct at 6pm, so you can see the voting results from your precinct. The printout of the PCOS machine, the voting results will be posted outside the precinct for everyone to see and even take pictures of.

The Voting Machine

The voting machine looks very much like a fax machine used in today's modern offices. The 'brains' of that machine are in its memory card. The BEI will have keys they will use to turn on the machine. The BEI chairman and members will also have password/codes to given them access to the machine. Operating the voting machine will be like operating an ATM unit. The anxiety some people have about the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine are unnecessary, a waste of energy and time, and confuse the public.

A much-awaited event is the release of the source code. The Poll Automation law (RA 9369) defines source code as  "