Democracy hacked
OUR democracy has been hacked under the PCOS system. There is enough blame to go around. Preponderant is the collusion of election officials and officers of an electoral watchdog, enabling a compromised modus operandi to prevail for the 2016 presidential elections. The shared mind-set is of “elections being bigger than all of us.” They actually mean the PCOS with all its intended flaws, swallowed hook, line, and sinker. The illusion of democracy a better reality than the reality of entrenched fascism? For why have evidence presented at several hearings of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System regarding numerous anomalies in two previous elections remained largely uncontroverted by Comelec and Smartmatic? Why is Comelec poised to lavish R12.641 billion of state coffers on Smartmatic as an encore to supervise the 2016 presidential elections?
All this contradicts a person’s normal response. For example,: depositor withdraws R1,000 from an ATM, yet his trusted bank spews out R999.50 instead. A next R1,000 transaction, and it is down to R850. And “no receipt” is issued to update the depositor on his outstanding balance. Straight away, the expected reaction would be a mass exodus of clients or a bank-run.
Such is a simplified version of the 2010 and 2013 elections. The ATM is the PCOS with a reported 99.995% accuracy rate or 1 error per 20,000 votes. In the latter electoral exercise, the exposed digital lines affected 15.64% of total ballots cast, up to a maximum of 6.278M involving 150.685M votes wrongly counted. The “voting receipt” feature, to assure the voter his electronic ballot was faithfully counted, was intentionally disabled. If Smartmatic was the bank in this case, what would 50M voting clients do but junk their depositary, transfer their accounts and business, plus file a class suit?
For honest elections in 2016 to occur, the following are required: 1) Source code review, 2) Ultra-violet detectors, 3) Voting receipt issued and to be deposited in a 2nd ballot box for legal reference, 4) Digital Signatures required by RA 9369 on the Automated election system, 5) Manual counting at precinct level, 5) Comelec- accredited computer experts as public watch-dog.
Wrong-doing disdains paper evidence. Criminals always cover their tracks. Syndicates repeat a working modus. In politics, the bigger the crime, the larger the loot, the higher the connection. So is the shadow behind Smartmatic the brother-in-law of… from the palace?
PERSONAL: Greetings to Herminia Mondigo Jumamil on her 88th natal day. Such age is a blessing, requiring a celebration and family gathering. Toasting a joyous birthday!