Comelec urged to adopt flexible automated election system

The multi-sector advisory council of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has recommended a more flexible automated election system (AES) for the 2019 midterm polls.

In a resolution dated Aug. 4, Communications Technology Secretary Rodolfo Salalima said the Comelec Advisory Council (CAC) “envisions the creation of an ecosystem of interoperable, multiple and mixed technologies where providers can reasonably participate as election technology providers for our country’s elections.”

But he noted that in the 2010, 2013 and 2016 elections, the Comelec used technology from the same foreign election system provider, apparently referring to Smartmatic International.

For the 2019 polls, the CAC “encourages more diversity, variety for election service providers, local and international, and less dependency, if not total freedom, from only one source or provider,” Salalima said.

The poll automation law tasks the CAC to advise the Comelec “regarding the most appropriate, secure, applicable and cost effective technology to apply in future elections.”

Chaired by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the CAC is composed of representatives from the Department of Education, Department of Science and Technology, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Philippine Electronics and Telecommunications Federation, Chief Information Officers Forum Foundation Inc., Philippine Society of Information Technology Educators, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections.

The CAC’s resolution also showed that after a series of meetings, discussions and deliberations, the CAC has resolved to recommend to Comelec several options for possible AES in 2019.

One of these recommendations is for Comelec to consider seriously the use of multiple mixed technologies, “there must be interoperability to encourage these potential innovative solutions and systems.”

“Interoperability pertains to the ability of all interconnected components of the AES to efficiently and effectively accept, receive, record, store, process, produce, generate, retrieve or transmit election data and election results between and among the AES components using a common election data structure,” the resolution reads.

The CAC had also recommended the reuse of optical mark reader (OMR) voting system because of its acceptability by the electorate and the Board of Elections Inspectors “as they have been exposed to this technology, thus minimal voter’s education is required.”

The resolution also showed that “the costs of keeping, warehousing, refurbishing and other related costs on the reuse of OMR will not offset the benefits and utility of reusing OMR.”

Binay: Suspend Smartmatic

Meanwhile, Sen. Nancy Binay asked the Comelec to suspend Smartmatic from taking part in the forthcoming elections until all controversies involving the election system provider are resolved with finality.

Binay made the call following the criminal indictment of Smartmatic officials and Comelec personnel for their unauthorized script change in the transparency server at the height of the transmission of votes in the 2016 election.

“There are a lot of issues being raised against Smartmatic even in the 2010 and 2013 elections and so, in the spirit of accountability and transparency, Smartmatic should be suspended and not allowed to participate in the forthcoming elections in 2019 or until the cases being raised against the company are resolved with finality,” Binay said.

Last May, Binay filed Senate Resolution 376 to immediately constitute and convene the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC) on the AES to look into the conduct of the May 9, 2016 elections.

The JCOC – composed of seven members each from the Senate and the House of Representatives – is mandated by the Automated Election Law to conduct a mandatory review of the implementation of the AES and make recommendations to Congress every 12 months from the date of the last elections. –