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Don’t buy PCOS from Smartmatic, Comelec urged

By YVONNE T. CHUA

AN election watchdog has this piece of advice for the Commission on Elections: Don’t buy the counting machines used in the May 10 elections.

Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER), instead urged the Comelec to just lease the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines amid a suggestion from the Venezuelan firm Smartmatic for the poll body to buy the 80,000 units it had leased for P8 billion for this year’s elections.

Smartmatic president Cesar Flores made the pitch at a press conference upon the arrival of Miss Universe 2008 Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, its “Ambassador for Transparency.” He had said the Comelec would save billions of pesos if it bought the machines now for future use. The lease contract with Smartmatic gives Comelec the option to buy the technology for P2 billion.

Addressing a post-election summit convened on Friday by the Ateneo School of Government, Casiple acknowledged that the PCOS machines were “still the best” for the elections, but he also identified the shortcomings of those used in the country’s first nationwide automated elections.

For one, the source codes should be in the PCOS machines and not in the compact flash (CF) cards, as was the case in the last elections, said Casiple, who is also a member of the Comelec Advisory Council.

He said the removable CF cards and the last-minute recall and replacement of defective cards had raised fears of possible cheating.

Casiple also reported that more than 1,000 CF cards were “scrambled” because of a technical glitch: Election inspectors had failed to hook the machines to the backup batteries and the scrambling occurred when brownouts hit several voting centers.

The experience highlights the need for voting machines to have built-in batteries, he said.

The IPER executive director also reported that 10,000 PCOS machines failed to transmit election results and caused delays in the counting of the votes.  He cited a report to the Advisory Council last week that only 95 percent of the results have been accounted for.

Casiple also stressed the importance of the PCOS machines to be used in succeeding electons to incorporate biometrics, particularly a fingerprint reader.

Casiple said while the May elections were successful, he said Comelec must address the problem of long queues resulting from, among other reasons, the clustering of precincts.

He also said Congress should reexamine the law on the manner of canvassing, especially by the National Board of Canvassers, given the speed with which the election outcome can now be known, thanks to technology.  “Should it (canvassing) still be done the old way?” he asked.

Election results are counted at the precinct levels. These are then canvassed at the municipal and city or provincial levels.  The votes for senators and party-list groups are then canvassed by Comelec. In presidential elections, Congress, convening as the National Board of Canvassers, canvasses the results for the president and vice president and proclaims the winners.

A review of the Constitution is also in order, especially its provision on the electoral tribunals deciding election-related protests, according to the IPER chief.  Questioning the qualifications of a number of tribunal members, Casiple said the electoral  tribunals are best returned to the judicial system.

With automated elections expected to be a permanent fixture, except perhaps in barangay elections, Casiple called for the modernization of the Comelec by providing it with an IT-oriented building as well as IT training for its personnel at both its national and local offices.

He also urged the professionalization of the poll body, calling the exemption of Comelec from civil service standards “a mistake.”

The standards that should apply to Comelec and its personnel should even be higher, Casiple said.