November 5, 2009, 5:28pm
GENERAL SANTOS CITY – Jose Tolentino, the executive director of the Commission on Elections, Thursday said that the Smartmatic automated poll machine is incapable of detecting multiple registration of voters and “flying voters,” a case which led to the recent bombing in Marawi City.“The automated machine cannot detect flying voters or multiple registrations of voters. The teachers manning the voting may check flying voters through the pictures of list of voters and the voters who will cast their ballots on election day,” he said.
In Davao City, groups concerned with the questionable processing of the automated election system (AES) also urged the Comelec to release the source code that is allegedly fraught with unreliable vote counting structure.
Rona Castillo, a fellow of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), bared in a press briefing Thursday that the 82,000 sets of poll machines have not yet undergone testing nor have arrived on time for such purpose.
Tolentino of the Comelec explained that the automated machine is not equipped with a gadget or software to detect flying voters, although a bill is pending in Congress to enable a verification of voters through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).
In the Marawi City incident, a resident of Lanao del Norte died while several others, including minors, were injured when an explosion hit a line of people who were queuing to register as voters in the city’s Comelec office.
Police and Army troops led by Brig. Gen. Rey Ardo, 401st brigade commander, later found out that most victims of the blast caused by a hand grenade were not local residents but were from Lanao del Norte who tried to register as flying voters in Marawi City.
The discovery of the dubious scheme to register flying voters after the deadly grenade bombing has led to the relief of the Comelec registrar of Marawi City to ensure the dignity of registration of voters, a move welcomed by Lanao del Sur Gov. Bombit Adiong.
In Taguig City, a dubious discovery of almost 700 centenarians in the city’s voters’ list has also raised concerns about the integrity of the computerized registration of voters.
Tolentino emphasized that the automated machines are basically designed to do computerized counting of ballots in the fastest way to void attempts to cheat in the counting as experienced in previous elections.
Smartmatic personnel, the Information Communications Technology Solutions Association of Region 12 and Central Mindanao Comelec officials led by regional director Mike Abbas held a day-long information drive in Robinson’s Place Gensan on the automated elections to demonstrate the capacity of the electronic machines to count ballots.
Smartmatic personnel demonstrated the machine’s high speed capability of electronic counting of ballots, the machine’s battery which can last for several hours and its capability to operate using car or truck batteries should a power outage occur.
Tolentino and Smartmatic officials also assured the public that the software of the automated machine cannot be hacked as it will reject any alien entry to penetrate the software.
Abbas stressed that Smartmatic holds the technology for automated elections but it is the Comelec which runs the technology, operate, supervise and control the computerized machine.
However, CenPEG in Davao reiterated that Comelec left the AES untested and is fraught with at least 30 vulnerabilities and weak spots ranging from ballot printing, the lack of a source code review, to unreliable infrastructural systems and imminent power and telecommunication transmission failures.
Among the 30 vulnerabilities, Castillo said the source code is the most critical since the counting of the votes would rely on the software to be used by AES.
“How will we know if the program used is correct and whether it is secured or not?” she said.
To put teeth to their advocacy, Castillo said their group has filed a petition of mandamus before the Supreme Court last October 5 to compel the Comelec to release the source codes.
But in a statement published on its website (comelec.gov.ph), Comelec said it recently selected SysTest Labs of Colorado, USA to review and certify the source code of the AES pursuant to provisions of RA 9369 Sec. 9.
“SyTest laid out a multi-faceted approach to detail system integration and the functional artifacts for testing the AES in various load and stress situation. SysTest specified areas of review and validation which include security of public fading devices, error notification, associated recovery aspects, apart from auditing capabilities,” the Comelec said.
Miguel Avila of the Smartmatic-TIM Corporation had earlier assured that their machines are “stand alone” and could not easily be hacked even by technology-savvy people. He added that the 128-bit system is virtually hack-proof and could not be successfully hacked.
Both EBF and CenPEG conducted an AES voters’ education orientation last November 3, which gathered around 20 religious leaders comprised of nuns, bishops and pastors.
“This is a very challenging task for us, poll watchers, because the counting of votes would become invisible to the naked eye,” said Sr. Elsa Compuesta of the Sister’s Association in Mindanao.
Source: http://mb.com.ph/articles/228081/poll-machines-unable-detect-flying-voters
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