Why we can’t have free and fair elections

Venezuelan election provider Smartmatic because they are crooked and fraudulent. That would be a legitimate and understandable reaction. But before we can start arguing whether or not we have had free and fair elections

of all determine whether or not it is legitimate and constitutional to have a foreign entity conducting our “sovereign” national polls.

I believe it is not only illegitimate and unconstitutional, but patently, inexcusably and treasonously so. The conduct of elections is a nation’s sovereign and exclusive prerogative, in which no foreign intervention or involvement should be allowed. But since 2010, the Commission on Elections has outsourced the conduct of our national elections to Smartmatic, without any qualms or second thoughts. The entire process should be declared null and void ab initio, and its results equally so.

Unlike the Democrats

When we consider how the American Democrats have responded to allegations of meddling by some Russian cyber operatives ( not the Kremlin) in the last US presidential elections, we will have to wonder what kind of people we Filipinos are. We have not reacted in any manner to this naked assault on our sovereignty. Not even the “nationalist” in President Rodrigo Duterte has shown any discomfort in claiming the presidency in an election run by Smartmatic.

In “Anatomy of a Fraud,” Glenn Chong, a lawyer-CPA and free and fair elections advocate, shows how the elections under Smartmatic have been rigged, and “winning” political positions are sold. Fifty million pesos for governor, P30 million for congressman, and so much for mayor, down the line. In 2016, one losing senatorial candidate was reported to have forked out something like P300 million in order to make it. Party-list candidates are said to pay P15 million minimum per seat.

But even if the reported commerce in political positions did not exist, and the electoral results happened to be 100 percent honest and accurate, the process would still not be legitimate. No foreign entity has any business running our national elections. Yet no political party or politician has ever bothered to raise this fundamental issue with the public, or before the appropriate court. If the political parties and those running for public office are genuinely interested in the integrity of public

they should now make this their common cause.

Not Russia, China or US

Assuming nobody could do anything about it in the last three elections, 2016 should have been the last time we ever allowed Smartmatic to run our elections. Imagine if it was the United States, China or Russia meddling in our elections! The nation would have probably long burst at the seams. Is the affront to our national dignity less outrageous just because

involved? Have we, in fact, tried to verify whether Smartmatic is still Venezuelan, as previously advertised?

Has it not undergone a change in personality when it made its international chairman Lord Mark Malloch Brown, a close associate of George Soros who is also a member of the British House of Lords? What about reports that Smartmatic’s international license did not give it any right to do business in the Philippines? All I’m trying to say is, do we know enough of Smartmatic?

There may be no time now to remove Smartmatic from the May 14, 2019 electoral format without scuttling the election itself, and creating a greater evil in the process. But it must now be clear to all and sundry that Smartmatic’s control of our past three elections had made those elections entirely farcical, and that its hold on the forthcoming election promises to make the same equally so. We should therefore resolve, as a matter of national honor, to allow Smartmatic to do the least damage in this election, and to

the latest farce is over.

Persistent lobby

In the last eight years, a veritable community of scholars, computer engineers, election experts and specialists and good government advocates has tried to persuade the Comelec, without success, to replace the Smartmatic voting machine with a Filipinomade model, which they have demonstrated is perfectly feasible. The Comelec has chosen to uphold Smartmatic’s commercial interests.

Those who listen to Glenn Chong and follow the columns of Nelson Celis, Lito Averia, Gus Lagman, Al Vitangcol and others on and other publications, or listen to the interviews of computer specialist Toti Casino, among others, will know they have not given up on their demand. Casino, for one, has decided to join the senatorial race in the apparent hope of engaging the monster at close quarters, in hand-to-hand combat.

As a candidate, he could insist with greater vigor and vehemence that all the security, safety and accuracy features required by law should now be installed, where before they were simply junked, and that any irregular conduct on the part of Smartmatic, as happened in the 2010, 2013 and 2016 elections, should be promptly sanctioned, and not be allowed to tarnish the results.

Global trend

In future, the voting should be manual and only the transmission of results should be electronic. This would be in accord with the global trend against paperless voting. In Europe, at least six major countries have recently abandoned electronic voting — Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, England, Italy and France. In the US, the hybrid model of paper ballot and electronic transmission is gaining ground — only six states no longer have a paper trail: Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, New Jersey and Delaware.

There is no time to effect this shift now. But the safety, security and accuracy features which had been airbrushed in the last three elections should now be put back in place, to minimize the hightech cheating. These include a review of the source code, digital signatures of the board of election inspectors on the returns

violet screening of ballot paper.

Minimum compliance

If all of those cannot be adopted at once, there should at least be some minimum compliance. For one, there should be digital signatures on the returns being transmitted so that those tabulating them will know where the votes are coming from. Second, the voters should get the required receipt to confirm that their votes had been properly recorded, which receipt they would drop inside a box before leaving the precinct.

Smartmatic and the Comelec should be prevented from “riding in tandem,” to use Chong’s words, against the May 2019 elections. Every effort should be made to make sure the anomalies of the last three elections are not simply repeated, and that out of the 152 men and women running for the Senate we should be able to pick 12 who are the least

It is not an easy task. Christ himself must have had an easier time

- erfolk and ordinary men than the Filipino voter today would have in choosing 12 men and women from the present crop to give an inch of dignity to the Senate. This is because there are more men and women running because they need

A new political class

This has to change. Before we can ever have a truly legitimate, free and fair election, without Smartmatic and all the cheating that has marked its elections, we need to have a new political class whose members will not simply want to be in office because they want to be there, but rather will consent to be in office because they would be depriving the nation so much if they weren’t there.