automated elections

Republic Act No. 9369 January 23, 2007
AN ACT AMENDING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8436, ENTITLED "AN ACT AUTHORIZING THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS TO USE AN AUTOMATED ELECTION SYSTEM IN THE MAY 11, 1998 NATIONAL OR LOCAL ELECTIONS AND IN SUBSEQUENT NATIONAL AND LOCAL ELECTORAL EXERCISES, TO ENCOURAGE TRANSPARENCY, CREDIBILITY, FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY OF ELECTIONS, AMENDING FOR THE PURPOSE BATAS PAMPANSA BLG. 881, AS AMEMDED, REPUBLIC ACT NO. 7166 AND OTHER RELATED ELECTIONS LAWS, PROVIDING FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES"

What is Automated election system? According to the Republic Act No. 9369 Section 2. Automated election system, hereinafter to as AES - a system using appropriate technology, which has been demonstrated in the voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, and transmission of election result, and other electoral process. The data is transferred by Electronic transmission it convey data in electronic form from one location to other. The Official ballot where AES is utilized, refers to the paper ballot, whether printed or generated by the technology applied, that faithfully captures or represents the votes cast by a voter recorded or to be recorded in electronic form.
The Philippines is using this types of system during election:
* Paper-based election system - a type of automated election system that use paper ballots, records and counts votes, tabulates, consolidates/canvasses and transmits electronically the results of the vote count
*Direct recording electronic election system - a type or automated election system that uses electronic ballots, records, votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical component that can be activated by the voter, processes data by means of a computer programs, record voting data and ballot images, and transmits voting results electronically.

I think it will have the following positive impacts; First, Less expenses and reduces election violence because there will be no ballot boxes that will be transfer every now and then. Second, eliminate the delay that would be possible for cheating between ballot tallying and preparation of election returns. Third, lessen the possible for cheating at ballot reading, tallying and also human error

I mention in the third part that in the automated election it will lessen the possible for cheating at ballot reading, tallying. But I think there will be still cheating during the election period. Cheating can be lessen but cannot be remove. Like for example, cheating before was in the form of violence, using guns to threaten the teacher, and the volunteers, in the automated election it will shift to hacking the transmittal of election results from one place to another.

Section 7 of Republic Act No. 8436 is hereby amended to read the follows:
The automated election system must at least have the following functional capabilities.
(a) Adequate security against unauthorized access:
(b) Accuracy in recording and reading of votes as well as in the tabulation, consolidation/canvassing, electronic transmission, and storage of results;
(c) Error recovery in case of non-catastrophic failure of device;
(d) System integrity which ensures physical stability and functioning of the vote recording and counting process;
(e) Provision for voter verified paper audit trail;
(f) System auditability which provides supporting documentation for verifying the correctness of reported election results;
(g) An election management system for preparing ballots and programs for use in the casting and counting of votes and to consolidate, report and display election result in the shortest time possible;
(h) Accessibility to illiterates and disable voters;
(i) Vote tabulating program for election, referendum or plebiscite;
(j) Accurate ballot counters;
(k) Data retention provision;
(l) Provide for the safekeeping, storing and archiving of physical or paper resource used in the election process;
(m) Utilize or generate official ballots as herein defined;
(n) Provide the voter a system of verification to find out whether or not the machine has registered his choice; and
(o) Configure access control for sensitive system data and function.
"In the procurement of this system, the Commission shall develop and adopt an evaluation system to ascertain that the above minimum system capabilities are met. This evaluation system shall be developed with the assistance of an advisory council."


According to Rico Mossesgeld these are the risks during the election period and I agree in this factors:
“There are Risk Factors”
Software - The software used all throughout the process, from ballot reading all the way to returns tallying, must be open for public scrutiny. It may not be proprietary and secret.
Devices - Ballots and computers used throughout may fail. Backup/contingency plan must exist and be robust. Sabotage could be the way cheating will be introduced, in order to force reverting to manual process.
Architecture - Transmittal and reporting of results could be susceptible to hacking. instant public visibility of results as counted at source and as transmitted at receipt will mitigate threats of hacking.
User - Voting needs to be simple and straightforward. Many Filipinos are not computer literate, and barely literate. PEBKAC errors can lead to many spoiled ballots, which may either be invalidated like in the US, or can be used as a pretense to revert to manual.

Of course automated election is a step to improve our election process. Every change we made have its good and bad impacts. And new system is part of the things we must implement to change the traditional election process.
If I am going to compare the manual and the automated, for me automated has more advantages than the manual.
For me, in this critical issues, we must be open minded on the new technology that are fast changing in our community, to make our work faster than before, much less error than before. The anomalies they are talking, discussing, arguing this past few weeks are normal. For me, no matter how perfect the system is, if the users or the facilitator of the system have some bad plan for the system, anomalies comes next in line.

We must all pray and hope that during election period there will be no power interruption in all the precincts so that the first automated election I the Philippines will be successful and less doubt to all the Filipino people.





REFERENCES:

http://technogra.ph/20090309/sections/analysis/what-election-automation-means-for-the-philippines/

http://www.google.com.ph/search?q=automated+election+in+the+philippines&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

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

http://www.neda.gov.ph/ads/mtpdp/mtpdp2004-2010/pdf/mtpdp%202004-2010%20neda_chapterx13_elections.pdf

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

http://www.philippinestoday.net/index.php?module=article&view=47