Stop Foreign and non-compliant election solutions — AES Watch

Stop Foreign and non-compliant election solutions — AES Watch

Today, the Filipino IT for Elections (FIT4E) which is supported by AES Watch*, is sponsoring a mock election featuring the demo of TAPAT, another Filipino alternative election technology solution designed by a father-and-son engineering tandem. The mock election is being held in cooperation with the Pamantasan ng Lunsod ng Maynila (PLM) at Intramuros, Manila.  Last June 27, an alternative system by veteran Filipino programmers was demonstrated at Bacoor, Cavite combining manual counting and automated canvassing, a solution berated for the “slowness” of manual count but never of its transparency and accountability.

Chairman Andres Bautista

Inspired by both initiatives, other Filipino IT professionals and scientists have taken interest in developing appropriate systems to help improve public services by using computers as tools for industry and development. With more support, there could be more potential scientific inventions.

Unfortunately, under the past and present administrations, science and technology has the lowest priority for government assistance. Not surprisingly in the Philippines, it is foreign business that is more favored and rakes up stupendous profits.

The mock election by FIT4E today will simply show that there is no need for the country’s election system to be hijacked by foreign suppliers whose main goal is to amass profits at the expense of minimum system requirements required by law. While the modern election law, RA 9369, authorizes the automation of the poll it also requires full compliance to the provisions of transparency and verifiability (Is the voter shown how his/her vote is counted?), accuracy (a mandated 99.995% accuracy rating vs Smartmatic PCOS’ average 99.6% to as low as 97%), transmission capability (in 2013, 23% of PCOS units failed to transmit ERs), auditability, and others.

Under FIT4E, Filipino ITs, developers, and scientists are more than capable of designing alternative election technology solutions that are cheaper, voter-friendly, law-compliant, and above all, fully transparent. The TAPAT solution, aside from PaTAS, which uses lotto-style ballots is automated and GPS-specific but is suffrage-compliant providing the voter a verification receipt and computerized and projected precinct counting before the ERs, digitally-signed by the BEI, are electronically transmitted. Rather than just “speed” – Smartmatic-TIM’s marketing tool – transparency and accuracy is more vital to ensure credible and publicly-acceptable election results.

When the foreign-supplied machine and its operator become the virtual demigod while the voter is compelled to adjust to the system at the pain of being disenfranchised despite the machine’s being non-transparent and unverifiable, how democratic can the election be? How credible will elections be in 2016 when again, non-compliance and violations of law continue with impunity in exchange for political expediency and profits.

Again we ask: Why is the Smartmatic-TIM always favored by Comelec despite the numerous transgressions this marketing company has committed in the 2010 and 2013 automated elections? Why the preference given to an unreliable foreign technology which costs taxpayers’ money amounting to billions of pesos?

Smartmatic-TIM: 100% foreign owned

Recent documents show that the Smartmatic-TIM is 100% foreign-owned contrary to their claimed 60-40 joint venture partnership in 2009 as prescribed by the procurement law.

In supporting AES Watch’s and other watch groups’ call for blacklisting Smartmatic-TIM, Leo Querubin, former president of the Philippine Computer Society (PCS), cites 17 reasons, including:

• In the 2009 bidding, Smartmatic misrepresented as its own the ISO 9001 Certification of Jarltech, a company not part of the Smartmatic joint venture with TIM;

• Seven days before Election 2010, the PCOS compact flash cards were recalled, then replaced without testing. Any chief info-tech officer would have been fired had that happened in the private sector;

• On Election Day 2010, the ultraviolet-lamp detector of genuine ballots was disabled, allowing the PCOS to accept fakes;

• Also in that election, the PCOS did not give voters verification receipts of their votes, in violation of Election Automation Act of 2008;

• Post-election forensic analysis revealed that the PCOS did not have digital signatures of Election Inspectors, belying Smartmatic claims;

• Random manual audits showed the PCOS did not meet the required 99.995% accuracy rate, but only a measly 99.6; meaning, hundreds of thousands of miscounted or uncounted votes;

• In the run-up to Election 2013 a U.S. lawsuit proved that Smartmatic did not own the PCOS, but merely was licensed to sell for the real maker. It hid such info in the 2009 bidding. That’s misrepresentation, in breach of Government Procurement Policy Board rules on disclosure of subcontractor arrangements;

• Still in 2013, the PCOS failed to transmit 23% of election returns;

• In granting the lease-purchase of 23,000 PCOS, the Comelec let Smartmatic hold a second product demo, after failing the first one. That was a breach of the procurement act;

• In the same contract award, the Comelec ignored the deficient Articles of Incorporation given by Smartmatic and partners, again a breach of the procurement law;

• At the SEC, Smartmatic-TIM claims to be a Filipino venture, with local TIM supposedly owning 60%. Yet in its submission to the United Kingdom Companies House, Smartmatic Holdings states in its Consolidated Financial Statement, audited by KPMG, that it wholly owns Smartmatic-TIM. Likely, official documents were falsified in Manila to hide the breach of the Anti-Dummy Law.

The holding of the synchronized presidential, local, and ARMM elections in May 2016 is too critical to be left again in the hands of an untrusted technology run by an untrusted foreign company. The future of our election process lies in allowing Filipino expertise, inventiveness and creativity to develop with government support. After all, both the Constitution, Flag Law, and procurement act promote the development of Filipino science and technology and the preferential procurement of Filipino-made products and technology.

STOP BLATANT VIOLATIONS OF LAW! STOP RELYING ON FOREIGN SOLUTIONS to PROBLEMS OF THE FILIPINO ELECTION STAKEHOLDERS!

STOP THE GREED OF A FEW AND ALLOW GREATER TRANSPARENCY IN THE ELECTION PROCESS!

(PRESS RELEASE)