HALALANG MARANGAL PRESS STATEMENT (May 12, 2010)

Early reports of discrepancies between machine and audit counts

in Manila highlight the need for prudence, especially since

machine-count winner Alfredo Lim was prematurely proclaimed May

11, 3 p.m., barely 15 hours after election day and without

waiting for the audit results.

People want a successful election so badly, that it is easy to

get carried away by flood of incoming election returns. Many

want to believe that a clean and speedy election has finally

happened, at last. But let not the public euphoria at the speed

of counting erase the persistent concerns about the process.

The vice-presidential election is yet to be settled. The contest

between the 12th and 13th places in the senatorial race still

has to be settled too. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of local

races also await to be settled.

Already news is coming in about delayed Election Returns (ERs),

malfunctioning, missing or otherwise questionable memory cards,

and other indicators of potential or emerging problems.

This is not to say we advocate a full return to the old manual

system, but only a prudent scrutiny of the automated process in

the light of its earlier miscounts, apart from the automated

results. In 2004, many who wanted “anyone but FPJ” embraced the

results, relieved that the elections fulfilled their

expectations, and chose to ignore the niggling questions that

eventually exploded in our collective faces as the “Hello Garci”

scandal. Let us not repeat the same mistake; let the niggling

questions be answered satisfactorily, before we finally accept

the final results.

As in the manual system, the precinct level count is always the

fastest. Even when election inspectors, watchers and the public

counted votes by hand, most of the election results had always

been available past midnight or early morning. Even under the

manual method, the biggest challenge has always been at the

municipal level and higher, where wholesale cheating operations

occurred.

In fact, the automated election system failed spectacularly its

first truly public test a week before election day, when many

candidates got zero – a “bawas” -- and some got more than the

votes actually cast for them – a “dagdag”. The results were

worse than most manual counts. An embarrassed Comelec quickly

called off the public test, and traced the problem to misaligned

ovals on the ballot. Because of a last-minute change from

single-spacing to double-spacing in the ballot layout for local

candidates, their oval locations did not anymore match the

coordinates stored in a configuration file in a memory card

within the PCOS machine.

Reconfiguring the memory cards was somewhat easier than

reprinting ballots, so that is what the Comelec and Smartmatic

tried to do.

Smartmatic only had 18,000 spare memory cards, so in addition to

the spares, Smartmatic recalled the cards that could still be

recalled; imported the rest from Hongkong and Taiwan; edited

each of the 1,631 ballot layout configuration files (unique for

every town); programmed these configuration files into 76,340

memory cards (one for each machine); delivered the 76,340 newly

reconfigured memory cards to the waiting machines all over the

archipelago; found the right machines for the right memory

cards; replaced the misconfigured memory card; and conducted a

second round of public testing and sealing of the PCOS machines.

All within a span of five days – 120 hours. Aside from some 400

machines that malfunctioned, the rest of the 76,340 machines

worked fine and gave the country its first successful automated

elections. So they say.

Can we now trust the machine results?

These machines had grievously failed to count a few days

earlier. This was followed by a mad rush of recalls,

importations, file reconfigurations, card reprogramming,

deliveries, reinstallations, and a second round of testing and

sealing. In the rush, were security procedures and chain of

custody guidelines still observed? Did anyone see an election

inspector with an ultraviolet lamp to check for authentic

ballots, for instance? (We have not found anyone who did.) What

about more subtle potential problems that a ten-ballot test set

was insufficient to detect – ovals that were misaligned by only

one or two millimeters, for example, or oval coordinates that

were purposely changed slightly to shave votes from targetted

candidates. Were tests done at all for these potential problems?

Suppose an ATM had earlier given you only half the money than it

deducted from your account, and the bank tells you the machine

is now ok. Wouldn't you count the money yourself at least once

in subsequent withdrawals? Suppose most ATMs of a bank network

shortchanged its clients, wouldn't you demand every ATM of that

network to be carefully tested and recertified for its counting

accuracy?

For exactly the same reason, every candidate who lost – and

won – in the machine-counted 2010 elections should demand

thorough post-election testing and audit for accuracy of every

counting machine and its results.

Losing candidates should demand it, because they might have

actually won.

Winning candidates – especially those who lead by a huge

margin – should demand it, because the gross machine errors a

few days earlier and subsequent doubts about machine accuracy

have devalued their victory.

Apparent president-elect Noynoy Aquino should demand it, if only

for the sake of his running-mate. We welcome his reported

intention to revisit “all issues his camp raised during the

campaign against the automation,” especially since one of the

more than 400 counting machines that failed conked out on him.

The results from the random manual audit must be awaited, and

the issues that may arise from it resolved. Questions that were

unsatisfactorily addressed before election day and especially

about the CF memory card fiasco must be answered.

There was no time for proper testing in the mad rush to the May

10 elections because few wanted the elections postponed. But we

have fifty days before June 30, when the new set of elected

officials are scheduled to take over. Remember, haste makes

waste. We still have enough time check, double-check, and be

sure about the results of the 2010 elections.

In the meantime, the Comelec and local election authorities

should not be in a hurry to proclaim winners and to declare the

elections a success. ###