Senate to test one of PCOS machines to be used in 2013 polls

The Senate will conduct a mock election using the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines of Smartmatic International Corp. tomorrow to determine if the units are indeed fit for use in next year’s midterm elections.

Senate committee on electoral reforms and people’s participation, together with the select oversight committee on suffrage, both chaired by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, invited Smartmatic to bring one of its PCOS machines for the mock elections in order to see how the system works.

Pimentel said that he expects the count of the machines to match the manual count, which would also be conducted during tomorrow’s activity.

He said that this should be a fairly easy challenge for Smartmatic given the small number of “voters” who will take part in the exercise.

The PCOS machines would be tested because this is the technology that would be used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in next year’s polls, just like it did in 2010.

“The objective is to show us that their PCOS are the improved PCOS. The Comelec has stated that all the glitches have been addressed,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel said that several questions about the machines have already been prepared for tomorrow’s demonstration and even though the process on transmission would not be part of the test, the issues on this aspect of the system would also be tackled.

One particular issue that would be tackled is the process of transmission of the results to its consolidation on the servers of the Comelec.

If ever some problems still emerge during the test, Pimentel said that Smartmatic would be asked to provide an immediate remedy to this.

In case this does happen, Pimentel said that more testing would be conducted until all glitches are fixed.

During an inspection of the warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna where the Smartmatic PCOS machines are being kept, the company’s president for Asia Pacific Cesar Flores claimed that almost all of these are in good shape and that only a few require some maintenance work.

“About 15,000 were already tested and about three percent of them were quarantined. We are going to check again,” Flores said.

After the machines were used in the 2010 elections, they have been kept in storage at the warehouse and have not been used at all since then.

Flores said that the minor adjustments and maintenance of the machines are expected, considering that they have not been used for over two years.

The Supreme Court ( SC) has ruled in favor of the Comelec in its decision to purchase around 81,000 of the PCOS machines it used in 2010 for P1.8 billion.

Smartmatic dares critics

Smartmatic challenged critics who doubt the security of the PCOS machines to prove that the technology could be hacked.

Flores said the accusations that the machines are not secured and will compromise the results of the 2013 elections are “baseless.”

“They don’t know what they are saying. There are always changes and improvements on security,” he said during the first public inspection by the Comelec of the machines at Smartmatic’s warehouse in Cabuyao last Monday.

Critics of the PCOS machines have expressed apprehension that poll operators may now know how to tamper with the technology since it has already been used in the 2010 elections.

Flores said that more security features could be added in the machines, depending on the Comelec.

“I can guarantee to the public that no one can hack into the machine. In fact, we challenge them to do it,” Flores added.

He said that “the most important thing is the system is completely auditable.”

“It’s impossible to cheat and not leave a trail. It’s impossible to cheat and not be caught. You have ballots in the ballot box and you have 30 hard copies of the election returns that can always ( be checked) against the consolidation and canvassing systems,” Flores added.