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As a citizen of this country I have the right to express my thoughts and views regarding the issues in the upcoming 2010 automated election. This current events confuse me a lot when this issue worsen. I guess, we must have to know the how did this issue begun. First, what are those laws amending/authorizing this 2010 automated election. Second, who are the people involved in implementing this agreement. Third, the conflict between parties and lastly, what are the doubts, opinions, concerns and point of views of the people.

AUTOMATED ELECTION

SITUATIONER
The conduct of elections in the Philippines for the past four decades has remained largely
unchanged. Philippine elections rely heavily on manual tallying and canvassing of votes thus making
them vulnerable to control and manipulation by traditional politicians and those with vested interests.
The cost of winning an elective post is highly expensive, and the absence of mechanisms to check
and limit sources of campaign funds become fertile grounds for corruption and divisiveness.
In recent years, initiatives to reform the electoral system included the enactment of the
following laws: Republic Act (RA) 8046, establishing a pilot program modernizing the registration
and vote counting process in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Party List Law,
Fair Elections Act and the Absentee Voting Act. To address the inadequacies and limitations of the
electoral process, RA 8436 or the Election Automation Act of 1997, was passed authorizing the
Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to use automated election system for vote counting and
canvassing in the national and local polls. The law provided for the generation of a national
computerized voters list, establishment of a voters identification card system and the automation of
the vote counting.
However, sectoral issues still hinder reform efforts in the electoral process. The following
have been identified as basic problems afflicting the electoral system: (a) outdated electoral
process; (b) failure to implement the electoral modernization law; (c) limited administrative and
regulatory capabilities of the COMELEC; (d) ineffective educational/information campaigns on
new laws and policies; (e) weak political party system; (f) unaccountable political financing; and
(g) defective party list system (Governance Assessment, 2003).

GOALS, STRATEGIES AND ACTION PLANS
To ensure a credible and transparent electoral process, the modernization of the electoral
system through computerization shall be supported to ensure the credibility of polls and correct the
deficiencies in the electoral system. Likewise, the Omnibus Election Code shall be further revised
and amended to respond to the needs of the present electoral system.
Measures to strengthen the party system and regulate the activities of political parties shall
be created. State financing of political parties shall also be considered through the passage of the
Campaign Finance Bill.

The COMELEC’s capacity to raise the level of political discourse and educate citizens
regarding their right to vote will be enhanced. This will be done through conduct of continuing
citizen and voter education through partnership with civil society groups and other government
institutions. The electorate must be empowered with information that would help them vote
intelligently. The challenge is to develop the people’s appreciation of their vote as a means to
reform the government and receive better services from it. Part of this challenge is the need to
raise the awareness of the electorate on relevant issues and the corresponding platforms of the
candidates, if the country is to shift from the politics of personality to the politics of party
programs.


http://www.neda.gov.ph/ads/mtpdp/mtpdp2004-2010/pdf/mtpdp 2004-2010 neda_chapterx13_elections.pdf

The government have there good intentions in planning for the automated election but how these plan of the government becomes today's top issue. who are these people involved in this story?

Smartmatic Auditable Election System (SAES)
If your electoral agency seeks a fully-automated, electronic voting system that is completely secure, reliable and auditable, the Smartmatic Auditable Election System (SAES) is your solution. Proven under the rigorous scrutiny of independent international monitors in several national and regional elections, SAES has distinguished itself as the system beyond reproach.

The powerful combination of robust hardware, secure software and highly qualified personnel enables the SAES system to guarantee elections that voters can trust, in any part of the world. From its voting machines that feature a variety of vote input devices, customizable interfaces and printed voter receipts, to its secure data transmission networks, high-end tallying servers, immediate results tabulation and fully auditable paper trail, the SAES technological platform is the only end-to–end system available that ensures democracy rules, cost effectively.

Security
The impenetrable architecture of SAES is the result of a number of security mechanisms that we created by combining internationally recognized and standard-based security algorithms. You won’t have to worry about election tampering.


Immediacy
Not only do SAES voting machines allow voters to cast their choice more quickly, they allow the results to be known just minutes after the last polling place has closed.


Veracity
Smartmatic was the first company in the world to include printed receipts so every voter can verify that their on screen selections were recorded accurately. This not only establishes an auditable paper trail, but invites public trust and establishes the credibility of the election.


Economy
The digital voting process reduces the cost of holding an election because it requires greatly reduced human and economic resources. In addition, a thousand tons of paper can be saved because the need to print anything is eliminated almost entirely!


Auditing

A prerequisite of Smartmatic’s engagement is that a series of audits are undertaken before, during and after the election. SAES has been designed to make this a simple procedure, creating what we believe is the most transparent automated-voting process available in the world.


Flexibility
Your electorate has its own laws and conventions for tallying votes. That’s why SAES has been designed to make configuration for different tallying methods easy. Whether you use D’Hondt, simple majority, relative majority or other counting methods, you won’t incur costly reprogramming fees.


Accessibility
Voters with disabilities can be accommodated comfortably by SAES voting machines. Buttons with specific shapes and colors, sip-and-puff devices and special earphones are just some of the features our machines possess in order to guarantee equality and independence for all voters.


Versatility
Smartmatic recognizes the value of innovations that contribute to security so we engineered SAES in a way that lets it integrate readily with civil registration and voter identification systems. SAES makes it easier to build on the security platform you already have in place.

Autonomy
In those cases where an electoral agency requires operational control, Smartmatic provides licensing solutions. Structured as a turnkey agreement with ongoing support, the technology transfer can be achieved in the mid- to long- term, after training has been completed.

http://www.smartmatic.com/solutions/automated-election-system/single-view/article/the-new-standard-of-modern-democracy/


Total Information Management (TIM)

Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation is a wholly Filipino owned Information Technology (IT) company with nationwide operations offering varied products and services. It considers itself as "The Filipino IT Company" competing in a field dominated by multinationals.

How do we accomplish this? TIM wields the strengths of:

* Expert technical skills that can only be achieved through continuous innovation;
* Extensive experience spanning 20 years of unparalleled service in the IT industry;
* Uncompromising promptness in product and service delivery.

http://www.timcorp.net/main/index.php?pg=about.tim

COMELEC

The Commission on Elections, also known as COMELEC, is one of the three constitutional commissions of the Philippines. It is the premier guardian of the ballot. Its principal role is to enforce all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of elections, initiatives, referendums, and recalls.

Functions of the Commission

Under the Constitution, the Commission on Elections is independent of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the Philippine Government, for which purpose it has been vested the following functions:

Judicial functions

* to exercise exclusive jurisdictions over all contests relating to the elections, returns, and

qualifications of all elective regional, provincial and city officials and appellate jurisdiction over all contests involving all municipal officials decided by trial courts of general jurisdiction;

* to decide, except those involving the right to vote, all questions affecting elections, including determination of the number and location of polling places, appointment of election officials and inspectors, and registration of voters;
* to file petitions in court for inclusion or exclusion of voters; and
* to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute cases of violations of election laws, including acts or omissions constituting election fraud, offenses and malpractices.

Ministerial functions

* To enforce and administer all laws and regulations relative to the conduct of and elections, plebiscites, initiatives, referendum, and recalls.
* to deputize, with the concurrence of the President of the Philippines, law enforcement agencies and instrumentalities of the Government, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines, for the exclusive purpose of ensuring free, orderly, honest, peaceful credible elections;
* to register political parties, organizations or coalitions and accredit citizens' arms of the Commission.

Reportorial function

* To submit to the President and the Congress a comprehensive report on the conduct of each election, plebiscite, initiative, referendum, or recall.

Recommendatory functions

* To recommend to Congress the enactment of effective measures to minimize election spending including limitation of places where propaganda materials shall be posted, and to prevent and penalize all forms of election frauds, offenses, malpractices, and nuisance candidates; and
* to recommend to the President the removal of any officer of employee it has deputized, or the imposition of any other disciplinary action, for violation or disregard of, or disobedience to its directive, order, or decision.

Other functions

* To perform other functions as may be provided by law, including fiscal autonomy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Elections_(Philippines)

Conflict between parties

2010 Philippine Automated Election in jeopardy

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) are now on the mindset of going back to manual counting if Smartmatic and TIM will not resolve their conflict. The COMELEC has given the two corporations until Friday to decide whether or not they could push through with the automation contract for the 2010 elections.

If the two companies cannot push through with the automation contract, COMELEC chairman Jose Melo admitted that next year’s elections might be done manually because the commission no longer has the time to convene a second bidding for a new supplier of machines.

Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., chairman of the House electoral reform committee, told reporters that TIM president Antuñez wanted 500 million php “up front” from its foreign partner. “If you give me a half a billion pesos, all of these problems will be solved.” - This was what the president of Total Information Management Corp. had demanded in a tease manner, but Smartmatic took seriously.“Of course, they took this as a joke but lawyers do not laugh about such things. They took it as a deal breaker. The lawyers thought this was tantamount to extortion,” Locsin said.Locsin said that by making “impossible demands,” Antunez was laying the groundwork for its defense against a lawsuit to be filed by Smartmatic in Singapore. “P500 million is really big because Smartmatic’s bid is already the lowest. You are not supposed to do that, it’s illegal. You cannot just give P500 million profit to somebody. Why will you do that?” Locsin said.

Other option the Commission on Elections is looking will be the joint partnership between Smartmatic and COMELEC, but worst case will be a full manual counting for the May 2010 election as chairman Melo sighted the automation will be “very slim” as” happy days will be here again” for those who will plan to cheat for next year election.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/2010-philippine-automated-election-jeopardy

Concerns of the people:

Is The Philippines Ready for an Automated Election System?

The computerized or automated election in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) scheduled on August 11, 2008 is being threatened by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). On the other hand, this article is not about politics in the Philippines. This is about the computerization of the Philippine election system.

Are Filipinos ready for automation? Let me give you some facts about the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) then give your thoughts if the Philippines is ready for an automated election system (AES) as mandated by law (RA 9369 - Automated Election Law):

* The 2003 functional literacy survey of the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed ARMM as having the lowest basic literacy rate in the country, with 30 percent of its people aged 10-64 years old considered illiterate.
* On a national level, one in 10 Filipinos can not read and write, according to the survey.
* Ustadz Esmael Ibrahim of the Assembly of Darul Ifta of the Philippines said illiteracy in the ARMM is worst in Sulu, with 40 percent of its people unlearned.

In addition, according to reports, two voting technologies will be used in the ARMM elections - Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) in Maguindanao, and Optical Mark Reader (OMR) in Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi. More than 3,000 DRE machines and 156 OMR counting machines will be delivered to ARMM.

According to Comelec, “DRE uses electronic ballot, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro optical components that can be activated by the voter, processes data by means of a computer program, records voting data and ballot images, and transmits voting results electronically.”

The automated ARMM election is a pretest to the 2010 Presidential elections in the Philippines. If this test succeeds, then for sure the Automated Election System will be used. If not, then maybe the Philippine government will consider going back to the “control” method which is the conventional election most Filipinos are used to or improve any weaknesses that will be identified in the implementation of the computerized election process.

This brings to mind the question, “How reliable can the computerized (automated) election system be?” knowing that anything electronic is much easier to falsify. Will the election finally put an end to the “dagdag-bawas” dilemma in our nation’s election results? Or, will the automation process make it much easier to fake election returns? Is the software in the machines in the automated election properly tested and proven bug-free? That we will find out after the ARMM elections. Let the “trial-and-error” in our election process begin on August 11, 2008. :-)

http://www.jpsimbulan.com/2008/08/06/is-the-philippines-ready-for-an-automated-election-system/

Tuesday, 30 June 2009
What’s the worry over automated elections?

MANNY MOGATO
Manila Bulletin
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/208159/what-s-worry-over-automated-elections

MANILA, June 24 (Reuters) — The Philippines’ Commission on Elections (Comelec) is signing a $150-million deal with a Barbados-based company this week to automate balloting at the presidential polls next year, hoping to avoid fraud and speed up results.

About 50 million Filipinos are choosing a president, vice president, nearly 300 members of the two-chamber legislature and more than 17,000 local government officials through the as yet-untested automated system.

Such scenarios are making local financial markets nervous.

Here are some questions and answers about the plan to automate the vote count in the Philippines.

Why automate the elections?

Hounded by allegations of poll fraud and manipulation of vote counts in past elections, the Philippines has embarked on a major project to automate voting, using machines that can scan ballots, print and transmit results that could declare winners within two hours at the local level and about 36 hours at the national level.

About 82,200 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines will be deployed nationwide. Each machine is programmed to read about 1,000 ballots from four to five polling precincts at 350,000 locations across the archipelago.

The elections commission said the automation process will minimise human intervention in the process and reduce allegations of fraud. It would speed up the electoral process, giving it a result within two days instead of the weeks it has taken in the past.

Can it be done?

Lawmakers, politicians and analysts have expressed concern over the readiness of the country’s election agency to automate balloting because of the introduction of a brand-new system that has never been tested anywhere in the world.

At a congressional oversight hearing in the Senate, lawmakers frowned on the lack of planning by the election agency, including delivery, testing and actual operations of the machines.

There were also concerns over the financial and technical
capability of the Barbados- based company and its local partner that have won the contract for the poll automation.

There were also legal questions raised over the ownership of company due to rumours that the Venezuelan government may have control over it.

What happens next?

Critics fear that allies of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo could exploit any perceived malfunction in the automation process to invalidate the elections.

Candidates could lean on irregularities and flaws to contest results and a massive failure in the process could result in a power vacuum if no winners are declared on June 30, 2010 when terms of office of all elected officials, from the president down to municipal councilors, will expire.

Any potential civil unrest arising from the confusion over the failed automated process could be used as a pretext for declaring martial law and subsequently extend Arroyo’s term beyond June 2010.

Arroyo is not eligible to contest under constitutionally set term limits for elected officials. Critics accuse her and her allies of trying to amend the Charter to remove those limits, but it appears the move to revise the Constitution may not succeed.

Thus, her critics are worried that Arroyo and her allies may be pushing flawed automated balloting to create a scenario that will work in her favor.

What are officials saying?

Election commission officials are confident the automated balloting will succeed despite fears of technical problems and also say tallying of votes can be done manually if machines fail.

James Jimenez, a spokesman for the elections agency, said voting will still be done manually and only the counting is being automated, so if the machines break down, the ballots can be counted. There are also enough spare machines to replace any defective and malfunctioning PCOS.

Gabriel Claudio, the president’s political adviser, dismissed as “unfair’’ and “malicious’’ the speculation that the administration was preparing to make automated elections fail and keep Arroyo in power beyond June, 2010.

Claudio said the President was determined to hold credible, honest, and fast elections next year, a legacy that her government wanted to leave behind.

http://bayan-natin.blogspot.com/2009/06/whats-worry-over-automated-elections.html

MY POINTS OF VIEW:

Election is the process wherein we chose our leaders that will govern our nation's success. This 2010 automated election could be the opportunity for us to vote using the trends of technology and a chance to have a clean and fair election in this country. As what I have observed during past elections, there are lots of ways to manipulate the election process.It is either by using power or wealth. Few of them practice vote buying while Some of them results into a bloody and brutal killings of the individuals just for the sake of winning in the election. I just don't know why this insane politicians are doing this, maybe because of the power and the wealth of corruption in the Philippines.

This issue on automated election could be a source of corruption and dirty election or could the first step for a clean election. Those were the questions that comes in my mind when I heard about this topic. I have read some of the articles about this, and I know that the government have there good intention regarding automated election but if this project will be handled by those people who only think for there sake and not for the country's success then, I'm quite sure that this upcoming election would no difference to the past election that the country experienced.


Most of the Filipinos don't really know how to use this automated machines that will be used for election. For me, I'm not anti to this plan of the government. As an I.T. student it is a must for us to apply the development and success of technology here in our country. Especially in this case that we are facing right now. But we should all consider a lot of factors in deciding whether the Filipino people have the capabilities to adopt this technology specifically in terms of computer literacy. In my observation, the government is lucking on preparation for this project especially in introducing this technology to the people. Although they have programs for this to teach those computer illiterate but still it cannot support the number people who are in need for this program, especially here in Mindanao. I guess the government should provide enough time for the preparation for 2010 election if they really want there aims and goal for this automated election to be fruitful and meaningful.

The best way for us to fulfill our aims as a good citizen of this country is to start in our selves the attitude of honesty and to show the love and respect to our beloved country by being a vigilant and a good observant to this upcoming 2010 election.
Whether we use automation or manual process of voting, the future would only lies into our hand...
"MAGING MAPAGMATAYG!"

VOTE WISELY... FOR THE SAKE OF THE WELFARE OF OUR COUNTRY...

AW... BY THE WAY... it's my First TIME to vote this coming election... hmmmm...

I'll vote for the worthy one....

have a nice day ahead...

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