Automated Poll Counting Machines Electronic Frontier has taken the world by storm. From cellphones to the internet, everyone is aware of the newest gadgets. Now, Philippines is now aiming for stepping into which seems to be an impossible dream the computerization of our Presidential Election on 2004. As voters, we need to be informed about the ins and outs of this turning point of our country. There are a lot of debates regarding the said process. What do we have to say about it? The automation system President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has promised the automation of the counting and canvassing of votes during her term and allocated a 1.3 Billion peso budget for this purpose. The automated system is similar with the manual counting at the precinct level. The names of the candidates including party-list and the other for local candidates are written in the ballots. Voters need only to shade the name of the candidate instead of the previous practice of writing out the names of their choices then it will be transported directly from the precincts to the city counting centres. Here, in the presence of election officers and representatives of political parties and citizen’s arm groups, a machine will count the ballot by precinct. It then prints a certificate of election returns – similar to a receipt – showing the election results on the municipal level, as it saves the results on compact discs. A new hope The practice, promises to eliminate most election-related fraud inherent in a manual voting and counting system such as multiple registration, “dagdag-bawas” (vote padding and shaving), ballot switching, ballot box snatching, and “ghost” precincts and barangays, among other anomalies. Namfrel executive director, Telibert Laoc said that it will be also be beneficial to teachers serving on Election Day at 4 am onwards for the next 11 hours until the polls officially closed at 3 pm, and then several hours more of tedious manual counting. However, chair of Namfrel’s systems committee Agusto Lagman stressed that Poll watching is still very important during the voting period just to make sure the process goes well. The fuss about poll computerization Like any other projects of the government, a lot of controversies emerged from the 1.3-billion-peso poll modernization program. First, Use of poll counting machines is limited to a number of areas due to logistical constraints cited by the Comelec. Chairman Abalos added that apart from Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the other areas where computerized counting will be implemented are: Baguio City, Iloilo City, Tacloban City, Cagayan de Oro City, and three other areas that the Comelec would select. The poll modernization law had originally required Comelec to conduct fully automated by 2004. Second, Comelec counting machines are said to be “faulty”. Millions of votes may not end up being counted at all due to the faulty design of the automated vote counting machines which are not capable of reading “backwards”, according to the former chief of the National Computer Centre (NCC), Ike Seneres. If a ballot is inserted improperly or is not adequately marked, the machine won’t react the way it should and the vote would not be counted. Third, anomalies were found regarding the biddings for poll automation. According to the Philippine It community file petition with Supreme Court, that the winning bidder failed the accuracy test. They explained that the bidding rule categorically mandates that the winning bidder should achieve an accuracy rate of 99.995%. The machines are required to register only one error in 200,000 marks. Their machines even failed to attain the 99.5% accuracy, which means they were registering more than one error in 20,000 marks. They also pointed out that the Comelec awarded the contract called Mega Pacific Consortium “when no such company existed during the bidding procedure.” Where do we go from here? Computerized voting is a very big idea whose time has come in our country. Overwhelming indeed, it’s a big challenge for us Filipinos to face it. It’s a big “wow” for me knowing it’s in my time (actually my first time to vote) that these automation would take place. Considering the pros and cons of automated poll counting machines made me realize some important aspects of the coming 2004 elections. Pursuing the modernization program may give rise to easier and faster election but how can we be sure that everything will be fine when the preparation for that “big day” seems to be a failure? Are we dreaming the impossible dream? Well… the dream is still elusive.