Failure to communicate
“WHAT we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” That memorable line delivered by a warden who beats an inmate on the back of the head in the 1967 film classic “Cool Hand Luke” could well be applied today to public officials who see no need to explain their actions to the public.
A recent example is the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) decision to award a P17.9-billion contract to a joint venture led by Miru Systems of South Korea to lease 110,000 automated counting machines, or ACMs, that will be used in the 2025 midterm elections.
The contract also requires the Miru group, the lone bidder, to provide 104,345 ballot boxes, 2,200 laptops and printers, the paper for printing 73.88 million ballots, and a system for verifying ballots.
Questioned about potential problems with the deal, Comelec Chairman Erwin Garcia told the critics to go to court.
“Anybody can question our decision before the Supreme Court,” he said. “In the meantime, we will focus now on the drafting of the contract with the joint venture company and ensure that the best interest of the nation is upheld on each and every provision thereof.”
In other words, we’re too busy to comment.
But the watchdog group Democracy Watch raised some valid questions that demand some answers.
For example, the group says that by Comelec’s own admission, the machine evaluated was a prototype, which runs counter to the Automated Elections Law of 2007, which requires that “the system procured must have demonstrated capability and been successfully used in a prior electoral exercise here or abroad.”
“Alarming reports about the company’s involvement in the 2023 elections in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have painted a picture of voting delays, chaos and a severe erosion of public trust,” says Democracy Watch’s convenor Lloyd Zaragoza. “Observers had anticipated a statement from Miru, clarifying and justifying the supposed ‘success’ of their technology, but convincing explanations have yet to materialize.”
Democracy Watch cited a preliminary report by the National Episcopal Conference of Congo and the Church of Christ in Congo that said a staggering 45.1 percent of polling stations in the DRC experienced difficulties with electronic voting machines.
These findings were corroborated by the Carter Center’s international election observers, who allegedly witnessed technical issues in 22 percent of the polling stations they visited, Democracy Watch said.
The international investigative and policy organization The Sentry also raised questions about Miru in a June 2018 report on its involvement in the DRC elections and concluded there were similarities between the electronic voting technology that was eventually used in Congo and models planned but ultimately declined for use in Argentina’s 2017 national elections.
“In addition, experts found specific security vulnerabilities in [the] prototype machines Miru sold to Congo. These vulnerabilities include potential threats to ballot secrecy, as well as results manipulation. Iraq’s current electoral dispute shows how glitches in unfamiliar technology can trigger contested election results,” said the group founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast.
Garcia said the issues raised by Democracy Watch had been taken up by the Comelec before it adopted the recommendation of the Special Bids and Awards Committee and its Technical Working Group to recognize Miru as the winning bidder.
This may well be the case, but that response does not give the public enough information, much less convince us, that these are not the serious problems that Democracy Watch and other groups make them out to be.
Instead of simply daring critics to go to court or saying these issues had already been addressed, the Comelec could have, in the interest of transparency, issued a short information sheet with bullet points addressing each of these concerns. It wouldn’t be too much work, and it would certainly not take so much time as to throw off the poll body’s timetable.
An electronic voting system, after all, isn’t just any ordinary automated system. Choosing the right one can have a crucial impact on public confidence in the electoral system, which is the cornerstone of our democracy.
Public officials are not prison wardens, and we are most certainly not their captives. We deserve more than a whack across the head — or a dare to take them to court when there are legitimate questions that need to be answered.