Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Primer On The June 3, 2015 Precinct Automated Tallying System (PATaS) by Gus Lagman
A Primer On The June 3, 2015 Precinct Automated Tallying System (PATaS) by Gus Lagman
counting). If cheating occurs, losing candidates can gather witnesses to sign affidavits
attesting to what they saw.
Unfortunately, the COMELEC, an election lawyer, several pro-Smartmatic
congressmen, and even an NGO have been demonizing manual elections for years,
forgetting that its a system our country had used, quite successfully, since the 1940s
and until 2007. Its the system that elevated Roxas, Quirino, Magsaysay, Garcia,
Macapagal, Marcos, C. Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, and Arroyo to the presidency.
Manual counting at the precincts is also acknowledged the world over to be the
most transparent system available today and is therefore used in most developed
countries.
Surely, it has its disadvantages. And we should recognize them, if we are to
eliminate, or at least minimize them. Manual counting by the teachers is prone to
inaccuracies, especially after they have been at it for many hours. It is back-breaking
work for the teachers. Tension at the precincts can build up especially in hot spots,
which can then lead to violence. During the transport of the ballot boxes, they can be
snatched and the contents replaced by fake ballots, or destroyed.
Then, the worst problem of all: the canvassing (or consolidation) - from
municipal, to provincial, to national canvassing - can take 25 to 40 days! Because of this
slow process, the results become very vulnerable to manipulation, or as it has been
commonly referred to in the country, vulnerable to dagdag-bawas.
At this point, it is important to understand that dagdag-bawas occurs in
canvassing, and hardly in precinct-counting. The reason is obvious: the counts at the
precincts are too small that manipulating the results wouldnt give candidates who
commit the fraud, much advantage anyway; and its much more difficult to execute
clandestinely, as there are too many voters watching the process at the precincts. In
contrast, the numbers are much, much bigger during canvassing at the municipal and
provincial levels where only a few people witness the consolidation.
However, the COMELEC and the pro-Smartmatic congressmen, while
demonizing manual counting, fail to explain that that step only took 5 to 12 hours in the
past and that it was canvassing that took many weeks to complete. This omission is
what has deceived the public.
A brief history of election automation in the Philippines
At any rate, because of the above problems in the old manual system, the
COMELEC (under Chairman Christian Monsod), as early as 1992, started researching
on the automation of our elections. I was tasked with the creation of the committee.
2
After scanning the available technologies at the time, OMR became the choice. It was
tested during the 1996 ARMM elections, using a Central Count Optical Scan (CCOS)
system - meaning the uncounted ballots, in ballot boxes, are brought to a central
location where they are counted by a high-speed OMR machine - and proved to be
successful, albeit with some minor problems.
It was going to be tried on a national level for the 2004 presidential elections.
However, the Supreme Court nullified the award of the contract due to the anomalous
bidding process conducted by the Abalos Commission. The machines had already been
delivered and one billion pesos had already been paid. That SC decision, released in
January, 2004, also directed the Office of the Solicitor-General to recover the money
and the Office of the Ombudsman to prosecute the criminals, but up to now - eleven
years later the COMELEC has not recovered the money and the criminals are still at
large.
The automation law, R.A. 8436, passed in late 1997, was amended by R.A. 9369
(to make it technology-neutral), passed in early 2007. Despite the passage of the new
laws, the 1998 and the 2007 presidential elections were not automated because in both
instances, there was not enough time to prepare for them.
For the 2008 ARMM elections, two systems were tried one province used
Smartmatics DRE, while five provinces used Avantes CCOS. Despite the different
technologies used at the precinct and municipal levels, consolidation did not pose too
many problems. Procedural and technical problems occurred but they were rectified to
the satisfaction of the COMELEC. One sour note: Smartmatic showed, unwittingly, that
results can even be altered remotely when it did just that to correct counts in a
Maguindanao municipality that zeroed out.
Smartmatics PCOS system
In 2009, the Melo Commssion decided to automate the 2010 presidential
elections, choosing the OMR-PCOS technology for precinct-counting. With PCOS, the
5-12 hours of manual counting was reduced to almost instantaneous counting. The
teachers, therefore, were able to go home earlier. And because canvassing was
automated, this 25-40-day step was shortened to approximately 5 days. PCOS (which
cost us many billions of pesos), therefore, saved the counting process some 8 hours
(average); the laptops and its peripheral equipment (which cost us about 300 million
pesos) that were used in canvassing, saved the process 20-35 days.
Despite the many objections from election advocates because of the
Commissions and the vendors non-compliance with the law, which the advocates
expressed before and after the 2010 elections, the COMELEC again decided to use
Smartmatics PCOS machines for the 2013 mid-term elections. That was to be an even
3
Our grade
Grade of highest
Voting process
53
88
Vote count
68
99
Vote results
61
96
Electoral authorities
64
98
Considering all the categories, Philippine elections landed in the bottom third of
127 countries surveyed. Notable, as well, is the Venezuelan elections, which
landed as 110th (1 being the highest; 127, the lowest).
And while there were a few good points experienced, there were, on the other
hand, many problems with the system, most of which were inherent to the technology
chosen.
The most disadvantageous, of course, was the loss of transparency when the
precinct-counting was automated. It became secret counting, rather than public
counting. When is it easier to cheat? When its public, or when its secret? Its really a
very simple choice.
Why is transparency important?
If the voters do not see how their votes are counted, how will they know that they
were counted correctly? How can the voters trust the result of counting when its done
secretly? Any IT person will tell you that computer programs can be altered to produce
fake results.
If theres cheating in manual precinct-counting, the voters and candidates would
see and would have a basis for protesting; in automated precinct-counting, nobody sees
the cheating. Also, if automated canvassing were transparent, voters could do their own
consolidation; they could then easily compare their results with the official ones.
And whats more, transparency is required by R.A. 9369.
The teachers obviously could not attest to the accuracy of the count that they did
not do. They could only attest that they saw PCOS printing the ERs. The only trusted
document therefore was the ballot, which, according to our laws, could not be accessed
4
unless theres a protest. But how does a losing candidate convince the judge to open
the ballot box in the first place? Its a Catch-22 situation that impairs the protest process
seriously.
The possibility of ballot box snatching was replaced by the possibility of CF
(Compact Flash) card snatching the latter being much easier because of the small
size of the cards (can fit in a shirt pocket). Fake CF cards can replace the official one.
After the 2010 elections, there were CF cards found in a garbage can in Cagayan de
Oro.
The PCOS machines were vulnerable to internal tampering, and because of very
weak controls, so also Smartmatics canvassing system,. A small group of technical
insiders could have altered the results of Philippine elections. This vulnerability is
unacceptable! It endangers the countrys democratic system.
While the Smartmatics PCOS system is cheaper than a DRE system, its still too
expensive considering what we are getting limited gains, many problems.
Transparent and Credible Election System
Given the above facts, it now becomes easier to analyze the past manual system
and Smartmatics PCOS system, then design a sound technology-assisted version that
responds to most, if not all the problems and disadvantages in the two systems.
Lets focus on the old, pure manual system: Precinct-counting, 5-12 hours lets
increase this by 100% to allow for a bigger number of voters per precinct ... so roughly,
10-24 hours. Canvassing, 25-40 days.
Just look at the numbers. One doesnt have to be a systems practitioner;
choosing the right approach in adopting technology is pure common sense. Automate
the canvassing. Retain manual precinct-counting (and save billions of pesos), but look
for a way by which the results can be transmitted electronically to the canvassing points
so consolidation can be automated.
Canvassing can be shortened to about five days (same as the PCOS system),
barring major transmission problems. With proper control procedures, dagdag-bawas
can be eliminated. Completely. With electronic transmission of Election Returns,
ballot-snatching during transport can also be eliminated. Again, with proper control
procedures, tampering during transmission can be prevented, or at the very least, easily
rectified.
Theres more than one way of converting the results of manual counting to digital
format so they can be transmitted electronically, but I find the following the most
attractive because it also enhances the transparency of counting: use a laptop to
5
duplicate the manual counting (using the taras system) and project it to a big screen,
so more people can witness the progress. At the end of the counting, the manual and
laptop counts can be compared and corrections, if needed, made. (Note: When
corrections are made, it should always be remembered that the manual count is the
official count.)
Manual count
Laptop count
Version 1.03